Special Needs: A Bruce and Natasha FanFic
by DrRJSB
Summary: When Bruce left Natasha and the Avengers to go into hiding after the Fall of Sokovia, he vowed to get help working out his relationship with his alter ego, so he would be less of a danger to others, especially Natasha. However, his departure has widespread repercussions that will require help from friends and allies to set right. (New chapts posted bi-weekly. Please leave reviews!)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Fancy Meeting You Here

Natasha fell out of dreaming and into waking with a wide-eyed start. She was laying on her right side in a "small spoon" position with Bruce's arm draped over her middle and his warm presence against her back. _No restraints. No music. No crack of the rod._ She had to remind herself to breathe. Her heart was now pounding, and she willed it and her lungs to match her partner's even rhythm. Yes, Bruce was still sleeping. Good. She lifted her head to focus on the bedside clock. It glowed 4:23am. Not so good. Too early for padding down to the gym. _Meh_ , 4:24 shone mockingly back at her. Now she was too awake to slide back into sleep. Then it clicked in her brain, Bruce was leaving later this morning with Tony for a science and technology conference, so, no, she wasn't going to the gym until later. In fact, this was going to be the first time they'd been apart from each other for more than 24 hours in almost six months. Add in the time it had taken for the world to settle back down, finding Bruce, and working out the details in restitution for the collateral damage… yes, it had been nine months. After the initial period in hiding, he hadn't been completely off the radar; at that point, she knew he'd wanted to be found.

"Dr. Banner, I presume," she'd said as she walked into the yard and he'd appeared in the doorway of the small limestone cottage. He'd smiled at her in that shy lopsided way of his, almost like he'd been expecting her.

"Ms. Romanoff, fancy meeting you here." He had a dishtowel in his hands, and he quit wiping his fingers and shook the cloth out to fold. They stood there for more than a few seconds looking at each other, smiling, not saying anything, as some chickens (yes, chickens!) pecked in the black dirt along the gravel path for grit and insects and a few bees on the sunny side of the yard started to make forays into the warming morning air.

She'd been ready to say something wry and sarcastic about bucolic domesticity agreeing with him or maybe about his beard, which was almost as salt-and-pepper gray as his thick curly hair. That, she noted, was long enough he'd tied it back at the nape of his neck: definitely a different look on him. Again, she checked his hands refolding the towel—they were the most consistent of his tells. His eyes had darted up and down taking in her figure and the bright floral-patterned blouse, neutral utilitarian pants, and walking sandals. No weapons visible. Just a medium travel bag over the shoulder. He understood the rhetoric of her clothing: no kickass leather, no overly feminine whiles or distractingly blatant cleavage (well, maybe a little), and shoes made for moving fast, just in case.

 _Well, here goes…_

They both took in a breath and started to say something at the same time. It took another stuttering jumble of words before she impatiently stepped forward to close the distance between them and laid two fingers on his lips, "Shut up for two seconds, Bruce. I need to get this out." She took another breath and composed herself, "I am so sorry for pushing you. I did not want to use you or the Other Guy like that. It's… I knew they were going to need us both, and they did, and there was no way to get everyone out unless…"

Bruce gently wrapped his fingers around her still extended hand, gripped it in his, and kissed her wrist before turning his head and holding her hand against his cheek. "I'm just, so sorry," she trailed off and stopped talking, finally staring up into his face. His beard was softer than she'd thought. When he opened his eyes to look at her, it took all of her training to not inhale sharply or swallow hard or look alarmed. His pupils had gone from their normal deep brown to an unnatural bright green; however, as startling as they had been for a moment, the color was quickly fading into the familiar range of earth tones.

"Let me guess," he said, lowering her hand with his and letting it go, "the other guy says, 'Hello,' too?"

"Um, yah. I think so." Now, she swallowed hard.

"Well, we've both missed you." He paused to take a deep breath, "So, while I have your attention and you've had your turn, please let me say I'm sorry, too. I knew leaving was going to hurt you, but I had to go. I needed to get to a better internal place after what happened, and I had to find a way to work things out with the Other Guy. I needed specialized help with him. Trying to destroy him hasn't worked and neither has fearing and blaming each other; the consequences of us not working together have been pretty horrible. Natasha, I know you wanted us to be together and to help me, but I had to get some of the mess in my, _our_ heads (it's a little confusing) his and my heads figured out. Well, I'm asking you to please forgive me. I, he and I, _we_ are in a better place now. I'm here. You're here. Please, the last thing I remember is you saying, 'I adore you.' Could we get back to that? Tell me that's still possible."

It had been just that simple. She'd dropped the bag off her shoulder, and he'd finally discarded the stupid dishtowel he'd been worrying to death and grasped her upper arms, pulling her to him, and pressing her to his chest. "It's you, it's really you," he sighed into her hair. Her arms had wrapped around his waist. He seemed to be all in one piece, he smelled good, and he felt like...

"If I bring you back with me, are you going to stay?"

"Yes," he said, tilting his head to get a look at her eyes, "I plan to be with you as long as you'll have me."

She stood there letting that sink in, watching the possibilities play out in her imagination, but she had to pull herself back. First, there was work that had to be done. "Good," she said and whispered in his ear, "we're being watched and recorded, so get ready to play along. Trust me."

He nodded in understanding, keeping his eyes on her. Then ever so slightly the green shown in their depths, "Let's do this."


	2. Chapter 2

2: Awake

Beside her, Bruce stirred. "You're awake, aren't you?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

"A-yup," Natasha replied.

"Please don't tell me it's 5:59 and the alarm is ready to go off."

"No, it's definitely not that late yet," she yawned and shifted her body to face him. "It's all of 4:30, and that's a lot better than 6:00 if you're feeling 'awake'." She stroked a dark curl back from his forehead and quirked an eyebrow, "So, my love, are you _awake_?" She used her fingernail to trace a path across his bare chest, enjoying the feel of his hair and skin and the muscle and bone beneath.

"When you put it like that, it's sort of motivational." At the moment, the only light in the bedroom was the ambient glow from the clock, some other electronics, and what found its way in from around the window treatment, but she could see he was smiling as her hand stroked his thigh and she reached around to massage his firm backside. Bruce stretched and slipped his left arm around her pulling them closer together. She used the momentum to roll on top of him as he settled onto his back, her knees astride his hips. It was a neat move, and riding motorcycles didn't hurt. She leaned forward and balanced her weight on her left hand beside his head. He nuzzled and kissed her arm until she bent down and their lips met. His mouth and tongue were soft and strong and his day's worth of beard stubble was scratchy as sand paper. He rolled his hips and she could feel his growing erection rub her thigh. "Oh, yah," she whispered huskily, "I think you're getting motivated, Doc."

"How about you?" he asked, hands stroking gently up her thighs and then squeezing her ass. "Ready for a morning ride?"

"I'm getting there," she said, leaning back to put her weight on her knees. Even in the shadowy light, Natasha could see his beautiful eyes studying her face and taking in her pale naked body. Its old scars revealed themselves as he traced them slowly under his fingertips as if to take an inventory of her battle marks. It was something he liked to do and reminded her of the number of times these same hands had stitched up the more recent wounds. His hands paused over a pair of small and very old marks on her lower abdomen that nearly dated back to puberty. For a moment, she thought he might say something about them, but he moved back up to her ribcage and on to cupping her breasts, tracing the areolas with his thumbs until the nipples stood erect. He knew they were pink and would be darkening to rose because of his attentions. Bruce really liked her breasts.

"Let me see what I can do to help my girl along." He brought his right hand back down to her crotch to gently but firmly press and knead her mons area with its triangle of fine red-gold hair before slipping his thumb in past her labia to work her clit. At this she breathed deeper, "Oh yes, I'm, I'm awake now."

Bruce chuckled, "That's my girl. You're already getting wet. Are you okay being on top?"

She bit her lower lip, "Oh, yes."

"Do you want me to put something on?" He started to reach for the drawer in the nightstand.

She took a moment to consider this. The toxicity readings on his bodily fluids had been consistently low since they'd been testing for the past six months. Normally, they used a condom during sex and a high-tech neutralizing foam pre and post coatis, but they'd broken a condom—more than once—and the upgrades had been increasingly less "enhancing", so they'd joked about saying, "Fuck off!" to the raincoats on a few occasions but kept up with the chemicals since they were the more reliable measure and quite sufficient for their needs. (Tony had pushed Bruce to commercialize it as a HAZMAT cleanup product, "If it neutralizes Hulk sperm, it's good enough for jet fuel, crude oil, and nuclear waste." The profits were slated for helping to rebuild Johannesburg.)

"No," she said. "I already took precautions." There was no possibility they needed a condom as a prophylactic since she was sterile thanks to her "graduation exercise" from the Red Room Program. Besides, this morning she wanted Bruce to get the full benefit of the experience since he wasn't going to be there to have sex with her as a stress-reliever for a few days.

"Okay," Bruce said, lifting a questioning eyebrow at her for one last check. He stroked himself to further harden his impressive, eager erection. Natasha settled her hips lower onto him as he guided his swollen cock into her. They both moaned and then laughed. "I'm so going to make you come first, Sweetheart," he said, and she could see the wicked gleam in his eye. He pressed his lips together in concentration as he began to rhythmically thrust into her, rolling his hips in a way that reminded her of a Latin dance step.

"Are you sure, Doc?" she teased. "I've been so in need of professional attention."

"Oh, yes. I have a prescription for your pleasure right here." She smiled at him falling into one of their favorite teasing scenarios. He gripped her hips more firmly and she ground into him. She then massaged her own breasts, as much for his benefit as hers. "I'm an awful impatient patient." He watched her intently, chewing on his lip and breathing deeply. His pupils were dilating. Nothing disconcerting, but she knew voyeurism was part of his kink and played with him a bit, squeezing her breasts together and then mouthing him a kiss. They were both getting off on this. Bruce was such a breast guy. He groaned deeply and it turned into a growl. "Oh, you wicked little minx, that's my job," he said and bucked his hips so she pitched slightly forward, exposing more of her bottom, and he promptly gave a sharp swat with his hands to both butt cheeks. The surprise move sent her close to spasms. He swiftly steadied her at the hips and thrust more quickly. With a few more strokes her inner muscles clinched hard and the orgasm rolled through her. He slowed down and enjoyed the weight of her on him, the contractions of her cunt on his very hard dick, and the look of gasping surprise and pleasure on her face. Even in the poor light he could see the flush of color spread over her pale throat and across her upper body. He thought of the pink beneath the light freckles on her shoulders and across her chest.

"Whoa," she finally moaned, breathing in air in panting gasps. It was like she'd forgotten to breathe at some point. She finally collapsed on top of him, "God, you're amazing. For someone who doesn't like surprises, you're very good at giving them, Doc."

"I will take that as a compliment," he grinned and snuggled in to kiss as much as he could of her ears and neck, "but we're not done yet." She pulled back enough to raise an eyebrow at him. "Oh, you skeptical Russe. Would you wrap your legs around me?" After a moment she willed her legs to comply as he arched his back. "Thank God for king-sized beds and good firm mattresses," he said under his breath, and lifted and rolled her over to her back while managing to stay inside her. Having that gorgeous size didn't hurt, Natasha thought as she made a mental note of his move.

He kept his weight on his arms, but leaned in for more soft kisses on her neck as far down toward her chest as he could stretch. He took his time, watching her skin color as well as he could and listening to her breathing and then her heart rate as he leaned in close, trying not to beard her bare skin with his stubble. He'd gotten fairly good at reading her over the past months. Once he was sure she'd calmed down enough, he whispered in her ear, "As your doctor, I recommend a second orgasm." Without waiting for a reaction, he began to use his lips and tongue on her ear, teasing and sucking the earlobe and the side of her neck, a turn-on for her. He wanted to give her a deep, dark purple bruise to mark her as his, but he settled for mouthing her throat on one side and then the other as she started to groan. He bit into her neck as deeply as he dared. At last, satisfied it would be pleasurable to her, he began thrusting into her again, shallowly at first and then more deeply as she hitched one leg higher on his hip.

With an evil little grin, Natasha slipped her hands between their bodies and found his nipples. They were very hard, so she simply pressed her sharp thumbnails into them. "Oh, fuck!" he blurted out. Talk about knowing how to push his buttons. He kept up his thrusts, grinding into her as deep and hard as he could without coming himself, "Can you come for me, my devious little patient?"

"Fuck me, Doc," she said fiercely, hands slipping to his back and nails digging in. Bruce drove his cock deeply into her and rubbed with as much friction as possible into her groin. Natasha clenched for a second time. "Yes," she whispered. "I want you. I want all of you. Give it to me now," and he came in a rush that seemed to stop his heart. The little death, he thought, _la petite mort_. Then the blood and the air seemed to rush back into him as quickly as his semen had been released into her. He nearly collapsed onto her, but she helped him roll to the side as they separated. Parts of him jerked and contracted a bit more all the way up to his jawline as the blood pounded in his ears. He knew he wasn't going to slip into full Hulk mode, but this was a Liminal state that seemed to pull both of their consciousnesses briefly together. It didn't always happen when he reached orgasm, but it was an intense experience when it did. He settled onto his back beside her and breathed, the blood still roared in his ears with each heartbeat, and the nerves down the center of his core seemed to vibrate and then resolve themselves into a low humming chord that was a part of him.

Beside him, Natasha reached over and took his hand and squeezed it. "Thank you," she whispered.

He raised her hand to his lips, "Back at you, Love."

After a few minutes, she sat up and looked at him to gage whether he would be all right with touching yet and then put her free hand palm down on his chest. "I can't believe how much heat you give off. Your metabolism is just like…"

"A nuclear reactor," he finished for her.

"At least I can feel your heart rate coming down." She leaned over him searching on the nightstand. "Close your eyes for a sec." She used the light on his Starkphone to inspect his body. "Still a little green around the gills."

"Not for long," he said. He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. "Eyes?" he asked.

She cupped his cheek in her hand. "Well, they're not neon, just sort of verdant."

"Okay, grassy."

"Well, it's out of your cheeks, and I don't think your extremities changed at any point. Lean forward." She ran her hand down his back checking for any sign of where her nails had just dug into him, but his skin was perfect, no welts or claw marks. The nipples didn't look the worse for wear either, and she thought she might have drawn blood.

Bruce lay back down, but he didn't turn off the light. He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and picked up his phone, which she had laid between the two of them, opened up the Geiger-Mueller app, and scanned them both. "You would think with all this heat that I'd be off the charts with the radiation, but we're both reading background-level low." He punched in "save" and then hit "share" and sent it off to Dr. Cho to be analyzed as per the Agreements. Other sensors had gathered other data. That was another concession. He would get to look it over first, but it would be "shared," too. At least he'd been able to pick Cho and her team. Now every detail of his physiology was someone's research project. He tapped in a few notes and flicked through some of the graphs the software had automatically posted. He pressed his lips together and chewed on the lower one. The lines on his forehead creased deeper and deeper.

Without a word, Natasha deftly took the phone from him and leaned in for a kiss before Bruce could even get a syllable of protest past his lips. She waited till he yielded and had kissed her back in earnest before letting him out of the lip lock. "You don't need to be doing this right now. The data is recoded. You've done your legal duty by the Johannesburg Agreements, so let it go, Bruce. I swear I will put the _Frozen_ theme in for every ringtone if you don't quit messing with this."

"I kind of think that type of punishment is against the Geneva Convention and maybe part of the Bill of Rights," he sighed.

"Look, Tony and Jennifer and that boatload of lawyers negotiated us the best deal possible to get you home."

"I know. I know." He took off his glasses, returned them to the nightstand, and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to get the tension to abate. "It's indentured servitude, but it's not jail…"

"And it's not a chemical lobotomy and it's NOT a dissection table," she finished for him. "AND it is a chance to keep doing the good you would already be doing while getting some credit for it."

"Time served," he said bitterly.

"At least it's with me," she said, "and we're here at the tower with access to everything and everyone you could want."

"I know," he trailed off, puffing out his cheeks with a Hulk-like exhale. He was always a little frustrated with the humiliation that came from having their privacy invaded, but there were also some persistently nagging questions with the data. "I just wish I could figure out where the radiation was going. It has to be related to the heat and maybe my endocrine…"

"Come here you poor thing." She pushed and prodded him up to a sitting position and turned him so she could work on his neck and shoulders. "Geeze, Doc, you'd think all those wonderful endorphins would have kept you mellowed out till breakfast."

"Well, that's the bitch of this metabolism."

"Maybe I should fuck you again."

"You wish," he said, finally letting off on the moping.

Natasha play slapped him in the back of the head, "Banner, you are such an ungrateful bastard."

He leaned back into her lap trapping her against the headboard. "Yes, I am," he said, "but I'm the sorry bastard who loves you… and I am grateful." She ran her hands through his hair; it was just long enough to begin to really curl. She massaged his scalp, moving her strong fingers in circular patterns. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" he asked.

"God, no!" She shook her head, "Stark would not appreciate me joining 'Science Bros', and I don't need to be there unless you really need the moral support."

He reached back and twirled a lock of her hair around his fingers, "Would you come if I did?"

"Of course I would. Is there a problem?"

"No, I'm good. I just had to ask it out loud."

She finished up at the back of his neck, kissing him at the top of his spine and resting her cheek against him. He'd come so far, but sometimes he was so damn fragile. When it came to his work, his ego was justifiably robust. Once she'd gotten him into the bedroom, he'd quickly progressed past a few hang-ups. Now, he was far from being timid or awkward with her. In fact, he was always eager to please her, not a selfish lover at all, but Bruce also knew what he wanted and didn't hesitate to ask or try something new. Sometimes this translated into his behavior outside the bedroom and sometimes not. She wondered what he would have been like before the accident. Probably an insufferable ass and an egomaniac. No, that wasn't fair. He'd never be like Stark. Natasha almost snorted out loud at that thought.

"What?" asked Bruce, who was probably getting tired of being a pillow.

"Nothing, Lover." She pulled his Starkphone out from one of her hiding places. "Promise me you are going to use this appropriately and I will return it."

"Cross my heart," he said as he turned around and made very big puppy-dog eyes at her. He drew a circle on his chest with a finger and crossed it, "I will even leave it on the nightstand till after we get cleaned up."

"What, no meditation this morning?"

"The shower will have to do. It's 5:30, and I'm surprised Tony isn't down here in my face already."

"If he has any common sense, he's getting in some quality time with Pepper."

"Oh, yah, sometimes I forget we probably aren't the only ones in the world having hot bon voyage sex."

"Ugh, I'm sorry I brought it up." She stood up and headed to the bathroom, "Dibs on the shower first so you can take your time." She was in and out before Bruce had finished shaving.

"Can you clean up the back of my neck? I didn't think to get an appointment with a barber or anyone scheduled yesterday, and I didn't want to just buzz it off."

"Sure," she took the old-fashioned safety razor from him. He'd already used a warm damp towel to soften things up, so it wasn't hard to blend in the overgrown edge with the taper at the back so everything above the collar line looked neat. She wiped off what trimmings she could with the towel.

"Thanks," he said, taking the razor from her hand and cleaning it off before returning it and the rest of his shave kit to the recessed cabinet. He saved the disposables for the travel set, which was already packed. She watched him step into the shower and close the sealed glass door. He'd never be as heavily muscled as Steve or even Clint, but his proportions were beautiful and so was his profile as he looked over his shoulder at her. Michelangelo could have carved that face from out of the marble. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, shaking herself out of her reverie.

"Okay. I was going to remind you to put away some of your toys I found while stripping off the bed."

She couldn't stop herself from grinning, "How many?"

"Five if you don't count the stash behind the headboard and the arsenal attached to the underside of the bedframe," Bruce replied while rolling his eyes.

"Oh, you are so close!" She wasn't entirely sure why she enjoyed this game as much as she did, but she did!

"You are a sick and twisted woman, Ms. Romanoff. One day, I'm going to cut myself open on that saw blade if you don't get some kind of cover or case for it."

"Okay, okay, I will retire it."

"That would be nice," he retorted skeptically with raised eyebrows.

"Oh, shut up and take your shower." She returned to the bedroom to find a neat lineup of weapons laid out like surgical tools on her side of the bed. He was three shy of the complete roster, but she was going to store the much-complained-about micro saw somewhere else. _We'll just see how much he misses that when the handcuff key goes missing._ The rest she gathered up and dropped in her sock drawer until she had time to get creative for the next round.

She quickly grabbed a set of underwear, socks, jeans, and a random blouse and dressed. She retrieved a pair of comfortable lace-up boots from the closet and had just sat down on Bruce's side of the bed to put them on when she noticed some adaptor cords were shut half in and half out of the nightstand's drawer. This was kind of Bruce's space, but she opened the drawer and neatened up the cords. Then it occurred to her to check one of her most obvious caches and pulled the drawer further out so she could reach behind it. But first, she pulled out the box of industrial-grade, fun-killing condoms and saw something that made her pause. "Oh, God, he kept them," she whispered. Natasha pulled out an orange prescription bottle with the label stripped off. Inside were two small pieces of electronic hardware. Originally, they had been round, but both of them were now crushed and nonfunctional.


	3. Chapter 3

3: I'll Take the Word of a Professional

She and Bruce had come inside the cottage, and he had been making her tea while she leaned against the kitchen table. "So, hiding in plain sight in an English village. The UK has more public surveillance than any other country on Earth. Definitely not the first place anyone we know would think to look for you, Banner."

"No, it's not Fiji," Bruce smiled. "To tell the truth, I had some help faking that." He then threw her a hand signal close to his chest and raised his line of sight to a spot near the opposite corner. She nodded, avoiding a direct stare into the hidden camera's lens. She then casually stepped out of its line of sight and kept talking, "Can't wait for you to give me the details on that. So why here? It couldn't just be the seasonable weather." She sketched a quick diagram of the three different bugging systems she'd identified so far on a scrap of Bruce's paper along with a note to keep talking about what they'd discussed. As she paced back across the room, she slipped it onto the counter in front of him where his body blocked the cameras. He read it, palmed it, and slipped it into the gas burner's flame beneath the kettle as he fiddled with the setting.

"Well, have you ever heard of Simon Baron-Cohen?"

"Uh, the Borat actor guy?"

"No, actually, that's his cousin. I'm talking about the developmental psychologist and autism researcher at Cambridge. He came up with the hypothesis that autism involves degrees of mind-blindness or delays in the development of understanding and interpreting other people's emotions and thoughts. It has to do with Theory of Mind. He also speculates that autism is an extreme form of the 'male brain', the part that excels at systematizing and has difficulty connecting with emotions."

"Okay, I think I see where you're going with this." She had managed to nudge her bag quietly out of the line of sight, so her next trip across the kitchen gave her a chance to pull out Leo Fitz's anti-eavesdropping device. This clever piece of gear handled the high tech stuff by sending it into a repeating loop of input from previously submitted non-informational data, like someone pacing back and forth over and over. On command, it could short the same systems out. The device also identified any old-school bugs and other covert tech as well. However, rather than just destroying these bugs (and thus sending some nasty characters an invite to "Come and greet us!"), she planned to make use of their captive audience. This performance was happening because there were certain things they wanted certain parties to hear before she shut the peeping bastards down.

"Well," Bruce continued, "I've been in contact with Dr. Baron-Cohen who directs the Autism Research Center and spoken with a few therapists and researchers there who were willing to take on the risks of a special case. The first step is being diagnosed, which in our situation has some big challenges. I've also been working with a psychotherapist."

As if on cue, the kettle finally whistled and Bruce turned off the burner, poured enough water from the kettle into the ceramic pot to slosh around and warm up the container before he poured it out, placed the stainless steel ball full of loose-leaf tea into the pot and then poured the remaining boiling water over it. He finally turned to look at her over the top of his glasses, "Well, Natasha, you're awfully quiet."

She had been watching him; he was steady and comfortable while doing something familiar and ritualistic. "So, _you're_ probably not too difficult to work with. How about the Other Guy? I can't imagine him sitting down and filling out an inventory."

Bruce made one of his smirky, tongue-in-his-cheek faces as he crossed his arms across his chest, "He's a little nonverbal of course, so rather than bringing him out they've relied on video footage and notes so far."

Natasha cocked an eyebrow at him, "Where from…?"

"The media, YouTube, but the better material is from Tony's suit cam."

"Really, you've been in contact with Stark?" Her tone was clearly agitated. "How long?"

"Since I've been here, uh, two months." Bruce looked surprised and horribly guilty.

Natasha's temper flared, "Two months! You could have contacted me! I could have helped."

"I know and I should have. I just wasn't sure if I could trust you with this. I'm sorry, Natasha, but that's how I feel."

In two strides she was across the room and slapped him across the face hard enough to snap his head to the side. "How dare you treat me like this. Fury can come back from the dead and do his own dirty work." The look of contempt and anger on her face was unmistakable, "Goodbye, Bruce." With that she scooped up her duffle bag and strode out the door, which she slammed shut with a solid bang.

Bruce stood there in shock, facing the camera. He kept his breathing steady and his features calm and neutral. He also kept his head down. After a minute, he went back to the tea pot on the stove, removed the tea ball from the liquid, poured himself a mug of tea, and sat down at the kitchen table. He took a very hot drink of tea and then sat there letting the mug warm his hands. Then he shoved the mug away and covered his face with his hands. A few seconds later, there was a low electronic tone and the dead-air sound of a something going off line and then two more similar sounds from other rooms. He didn't dare look up until Natasha silently slipped back in the door from the outside. She placed a finger over her lips and slipped a hand behind the refrigerator to retrieve a small, innocuous-looking metal disk, which she laid on the table a few feet from Bruce. She motioned for him not to touch it. She then silently retrieved another one from a potted plant on the windowsill. After studying them side by side on the table for a moment, she then took what looked like a cross between a pair of brassknuckles and an oyster knife from somewhere in her back waistband and promptly slammed it down twice, smashing both the bugs. She finished by dropping the pair of remains into Bruce's half-full tea mug.

Bruce stared at her and raised his eyebrows in a silent question aimed at her, still not daring to move. Natasha laid the wicked-looking weapon on the table then smiled and kissed Bruce on the mouth full and deep. After the initial shock, he pushed his chair back and pulled her onto his lap. Soon she was laughing, "Oh, God, you were perfect! Oh, shit! Did I hurt you?" She inspected the left side of his face, which did indeed have a Natasha-shaped handprint in red quite visible even with the beard, and it was beginning to swell a bit.

"Yah, that did surprise me a little," he admitted and finally moved his jaw around a bit to make sure nothing was broken. "I bit my tongue, but it'll be okay before long."

Natasha's phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket. "It's Stark." She answered it and there were cheers audible in the background. She put it on speaker.

"Be sure to thank me in your speech to the academy, Ms. Romanoff. I want lots of adoration and swag. Maybe a writing and an audio credit. Definitely, one for cinematography."

"I take it you got it all, Tony? Because I'm not doing it again and neither is Bruce."

"How is your furry punching bag?"

"I'm fine, guys. Thanks, I really appreciate all the work that went into this and everything else you're doing for us."

"Bruce, we'll have you home soon, buddy! Don't let her bitch-slap you around too much. If she does, get it on video so it can go on the sex tape. We have to pay for your defense fund somehow. Oh, hey, Hill wants to talk to you."

Maria's voice then came on the phone: "Wow, you two do good work. We'll be able to use this as evidence of Bruce's improving control and to demonstrate he's preemptively taking action to work on his problems. The negotiating team meets today, and they will be sending you an update on their progress within the next 24 hours or so. The parameter is reporting all clear and the loops seem to be doing their job for now, so the extraction crew will be there after sunset. Just sit tight until then. Stay indoors. Stay out of trouble, both of you!"

"No problem. Tell Fitz it worked like a charm. I owe him one. Thanks and we'll see you soon." Natasha shut the phone off and pocketed it. She was positively gleeful inside, but didn't want to get too overconfident. They'd come a long way, but there were still weeks, months of work ahead.

"You're sure the phone is secure?" asked Bruce, not quite ready to rejoice.

"It's packed with security in multiple layers and a random algorithm generator encryption program on steroids. You'll have to ask Stark for details; it's one of his." Bruce still looked a little skeptical. "In other words, yes, it's secure and as close to unhackable as possible. Believe me, we know whom we're up against."

"Are all the bugs disabled? And these?" he tapped his tea mug where the two smashed up bugs swam in the cooling liquid."

"Yes and yes." She dug out the bug-hacking device from another pocket and brought up the detector screen to show him the clean scans. "If it will make you feel better, I'll go collect them, smash them, and microwave them, but it will take me awhile to dig the S.H.I.E.L.D. one out of that wall. At some point, they'll want to reuse this place and the techies will get very pissy, especially the ones cleaning up the microwave."

"Okay," Bruce said giving her plenty of side eye, but finally cracking a smile, "I guess I'll take the word of a professional."

"If Clint were here, he'd insist on putting an arrow through all of them, but you have my word, I checked the place out thoroughly two months ago and scanned the whole property with multiple devices. Leo Fitz, the guy who made this, was here for a dry run while you were out yesterday. I think I can definitively say we have identified all the bugs and put them out of commission. In fact, once these two are dried out, I may turn them into earrings," she said tapping his mug.

"All right," he finally seemed to think about relaxing. "That scanner said there were three newer systems and you pulled out two old-school audio bugs from here in the kitchen. Who are our listeners?"

She ticked the players off on her fingers for him. "Well, the current version of S.H.I.E.L.D. (with whom we are allied), Hydra (who reactivated their tap into the S.H.I.E.L.D. set last month), MI5 (the host team), another government-type entity (probably the Mossad), and I'm suspecting a non-government group is our final audience member. If we're lucky, some of our performance will turn up on the Internet and we'll be able to back track it. I'm rooting for Anonymous, but it's more their style to hack the data afterward than play with us spies."

Bruce nodded, "Why were the two bugs you destroyed both located here in the kitchen?"

"This is where the land line is," she replied, "and people tend to sit down to talk and plan in the kitchen."

"Okay, that makes sense." His shoulders finally seemed to unknot. If she hadn't been on his lap, he would have been pacing and doing his hand and finger routine or strangling another dishtowel.

"Now, what are we going to do for the next six hours, Dr. Banner?"

Among other things, he'd made her brunch, they had a long talk about the Big Guy, and she'd convinced Bruce to let her cut his hair instead of just buzz it off. The beard had been fun to deconstruct, too. Unfortunately, Bruce's goatee lasted for only three days because Tony gave them both too much shit over it.

Natasha shook the bugs out of the pill bottle and onto her palm. If Bruce had asked her one more question about whether they were neutralized, she'd been ready to ask the Other Guy to eat them. Maybe that's why she was a little surprised to see he'd gone to the trouble to save them. She slid them back into the pill bottle and replaced them in the drawer after checking her cache. The condoms and the cords went back into the drawer, and she bent over to pull on and lace up her boots. That's when she realized something did not feel right.

Note: Simon Baron-Cohen and the Center for Autism Research are real. Go check them out on the web if you want to know more about his theories and the great work these folks do.


	4. Chapter 4

4: On the Spectrum

When Bruce turned the water on in the shower, he let it hit him in the face, and he stayed there for several minutes before soaping up. It helped drown out some of the noise in his brain. Right now there was a lot of noise. He wanted to meditate, but his head wouldn't settle or empty out. He now knew from the tests at the Center that this was one of his autistic quirks that happened inside his head sometimes when he was feeling blocked and stressed. He'd done this a lot more in childhood, but less and less as he'd grown up. Sometimes, if he just went with it, he'd find an answer. The downside was he had a hard time pulling out of some of the mental loops or ruts he had carved over the decades. He'd always been a smart, quirky kid who often had to pace and touch his hands, fold his arms, and fiddle with his glasses. Natasha called those his "tells", but the experts called them self-stimulatory behaviors or stems. They also bordered on obsessive-compulsive behavior. Whatever you called them, they were his fall back thing to do with his hands to help feel comfortable and focused. Most of the time he had no clue he was even doing them.

He could tell Natasha wasn't comfortable with the diagnostic labels yet, but Bruce thought it was good to have a vocabulary to name and describe what he, and the Other Guy to a much greater extent, were experiencing. The physical behaviors were the most obvious manifestations of his condition. They really weren't a problem. The internal behaviors were a much bigger potential issue. They were comforting, but they were traps. He could play through certain television show episodes or movies or documentaries or musicals or operas or theorems or elaborate equations completely in his head. Thanks to the time spent volunteering in a pediatric clinic, he had added most of the Disney animated features to his repertoire, too. Although this ingrained auto-recall was entertaining during boring meetings, down time, and Trivial Pursuit, he'd missed flights and busses before because he'd gotten so completely caught up replaying a _Star Trek Next Generation_ episode ("The Drum Head," Data was a favorite) and _My Fair Lady_ respectively. Not good. They also kept him up at night, but sleeping with Natasha had pretty much taken care of that. During the day, the secret was to keep things moving. As long as the information kept moving through his head without getting stuck, he was okay.

He had been called a nerd and a geek or worse all his life, so one more label didn't bother him. Bruce was born too late to be diagnosed as a kid, and he had just learned to cope with his issues along with his father's abuse and alcoholism. Now, there were plenty of quirky adults with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who were themselves finding out they had a similar variation of the same condition. To tell the truth, it was a relief to know and understand why he did some of the things he did. Before, he had puzzled over why he sometimes could not tolerate being touched and yet at other times desperately needed to be held and feel pressure on his skin. God knows he had been the poster boy for social awkwardness and being unable to express his feelings in a healthy and consistent way.

The diagnosis also helped explain some of Bruce's poor decision-making skills, and why Tony both enthralled and horrified him with his extroversion and spontaneity. Bruce liked patterns and predictability. Tony was chaos, but at least he was predictable in his unpredictability. Professionally and personally, Tony had provided Bruce stability and productive collaboration that had kept his darker moods mostly at bay and helped him face several of his issues. Although his charismatic personality could overwhelm Bruce, Tony had learned when to back off, and Bruce had learned how and when to stand his ground or just go along for the ride. It was an understatement to say the Tony was the true friend Bruce needed and the best one he'd ever had.

Initially, Bruce had no idea what to make of Natasha Romanoff, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and former Russian operative. As a spy, she seemed potentially manipulative, endlessly changing, and alarmingly malleable, depending upon the job and circumstance. In other words, on the surface, Natasha was not someone he'd normally pick to work with, much less connect with so completely. Nevertheless, as he'd come to know Natasha the person and they'd both gotten past the incident on the Helicarrier, he'd seen the solid, reliable woman that she could be. It wasn't long after this realization that he and the Big Guy trusted her as a colleague and then as a friend. Naturally, he'd been attracted to her from the start—probably because of her calm demeanor and her willingness to engage with him, despite his reputation, and not just because of her obvious physical "charms." However, it wasn't until they started working together on the Lullaby that Bruce had recognized two important developments: first, he was finally over his feelings for Betty (who had long since moved on with her life) and second, he was completely and utterly smitten with Natasha. The idea that she might be interested in him, as anything other than a colleague and a friend, simply had not entered his head as a viable possibility. Whether that had more to do with the ASD or his general lack of self-confidence at the time was a hard call. Bruce didn't see any logic in putting lots of energy into such a lost cause, so he'd shut down and compartmentalized his feelings. _Why bother trying. Banner? Just enjoy what you do have._

Something else to consider about his condition was, although Bruce didn't have too many auditory and sensory issues (at least now as an adult), he was certain the Other Guy was quite susceptible to them. They both were prone to fits of anger, especially when overloaded with too much sensory input. As with the still mysterious causes of the condition, he and the diagnosticians and therapists were slowly pulling the pieces of the puzzle together to see if there were any treatments that might help. A couple of things they already knew included that Bruce's metabolism burned off medications too fast for them to be of much use. This was a major setback in the therapy team's usual playbook, but drugs weren't the only possible course of action. From the beginning, they also knew that by far the biggest challenge was just communicating with the Other Guy, something Bruce was slowly managing in fits and starts with Natasha's help.

As the water continued to pelt him in the present, Bruce was still mentally chewing over the mystery of the radiation loss (or was it an absence) and whether or not the heat would account for it and did it have anything to do with the thymus or pituitary so why not go ahead and take a blood sample and forward it because surely they would ask for that but they could wait till Monday since it wasn't really part of the agreement but that was such a freaking risk and yes the bags were long since packed and probably already downstairs and loaded in the car but he was bound to have forgotten something he always forgot to do we have time for one more good fuck because we've done it in the shower before and remember the cell phone is on the night stand and you really need to quit wasting water like this and the music deck is loaded and the headphones are in the jacket on the back of the chair but what will happen if I start to go Liminal like this because it will freak people out… Oh, SHUT UP. Focus, idiot, focus.

He was headed into a mental loop again and sometimes they just would not stop. Stop. Stop. Stop… . S t o p. He tried hard to think of his music list. The fewer the words the better. Chicago, "25 or 6 to 4," that would do. It was orange like the sun coming up, not like a carrot. This isn't sensory overload; it's brain overload. You can handle this, Bruce. It's just words. Sometimes I hate words. We're okay with that, aren't we? YES. Thanks. TASHA. Natasha. HELP. Natasha. NOW. YOU HELP. Oh, shit!

He turned off the water and looked around wildly. She was kneeling by the toilet. He threw back the shower door a little harder than he'd intended, but kept his balance and avoided the rebound. "Are you okay?!" He realized halfway to her that she was throwing up or at least trying to vomit, but it was more dry heaves than anything productive. He was dripping wet, but he held her shoulder-length auburn hair back from her face as best as he could and tried not to get her soaked.

"I'll be okay in a minute," she finally said. "Get yourself a towel, Bruce. I don't need a second shower." Then she seemed to notice his feet on the tile floor for the first time and turned her head to look at him slowly as her eyes traveled the rest of the way up his body to meet his eyes. _Something was wrong._ He then looked and noticed the veins and arteries in his hands and arms were off color; in fact, his whole body was off, too broad, too tall, too close to green. He hadn't noticed any pain, but he'd been focused on her. He still felt like himself, but the physical proportions weren't his. He closed his eyes. He really did not want to look in the mirror. The hum was there, but pitched a little high and agitated. He took a deep breath and decided just to keep going. He'd had these "Liminal" in-between episodes before. They seldom lasted long, and he'd be back to normal in a few minutes. In fact, when the Other Guy was sure Natasha was okay, he would fade into the background very quickly and Bruce would be back to as normal as he got.

"Could it be food poisoning?" he asked as he wrapped an almost too small towel around his waist and dropped another one on the floor to mop up his tracks across the bathroom and the puddle next to Natasha. He used his foot, but it was rather large and felt clumsy. He tried to focus on her situation, but he couldn't even remember what they ate for dinner. Unless he'd cooked, that was pretty much normal for him.

"No, I'd have been up last night if it was something I ate."

"What exactly happened?" _Why did she look so good even while she was hurling?_

"I was putting on my boots and got dizzy then nauseous. I'm almost over it," Natasha replied, obviously feeling a little perturbed and impatient with the situation.

He offered her a hand, and she didn't hesitate to take it and pull herself up. _Oh, God, I really am green, and she looks so small!_

"Are you feverish?" Bruce almost put the back of his hand to her forehead, but didn't. He could tell he was putting off heat.

"No, I'm really not. Damn it, Bruce, look at your self in the mirror. It's not that bad."

He did look at himself through the haze of moisture, but he couldn't see much besides the white of the towel and the outline of something too large and greenish to be him, so he didn't say anything. He did grab a washcloth and dampened it. He almost wiped her face, but changed his mind and handed it to her. She cleaned up and rinsed her mouth out before deciding a toothbrush was necessary.

"Do you want me to go online and make you an appointment with a GP or urgent care?" he offered.

"God, no, I'm fine now, but I don't think I'll be kissing you just in case it's a virus."

"It wouldn't matter if you kissed me; I haven't been sick since the accident," Bruce reminded her dolefully.

"Right, how did I forget that? Brush your teeth and we'll talk." Natasha then left him in the bathroom.

Bruce finished cleaning up the floor and pitched the dirties into the laundry. He'd already brushed his teeth earlier, and he didn't think a near Hulk-out would give him halitosis. Besides, the toothbrush still felt sort of smallish in his hand. That's when he did look up and used another towel to wipe the fog off the mirror. He'd expected to see the Other Guy staring back at him, but it was mostly just himself with some borrowed coloring and proportional thickness. He got closer to the mirror and looked himself in his very green eyes, "She's going to be okay. Trust me to take care of her." What he noticed first was the towel slipping off his hips and hitting the floor. Then he could feel himself contracting. Although it wasn't particularly painful, it did send that odd thrumming and a rushing of blood through him. "Mission accomplished," he whispered to himself. YES, came the answer back.


	5. Chapter 5

5: Liminal

Natasha had retrieved her phone and was sitting on the corner of the bed counting out days on the calendar. A week late and she hadn't even realized it. _Shit!_ She'd lucked out and had a light month before, but this wasn't good. She had to get Bruce on his way with Tony first, so she could then figure this out. _Stress—it was probably just stress._ She put the phone in her pocket and shoved her concerns to the back of her mind. She watched Bruce finish up in the bathroom. He had put down the toothbrush and was finally looking at himself in the mirror. It was pretty cute and dorky. Bruce was normally a very average 5' 9", the perfect kissing height for her, but at the moment he was almost a foot taller than that. He could have more than looked Thor in the eye, but he was nowhere near the Hulk's variable eight to twelve plus feet. He was also less than halfway to the Other Guy's gargantuan musculature and vividness, and his voice and facial structure were mostly his own. She thought they both had a really nice ass, so Bruce was looking quite fine from that angle this morning. _Focus, girl!_

Liminal: that was a good word for it, the threshold stage between two states of being. This sometimes happened when he was overly excited or stimulated. Often the incidents happened in bed. Normally, it went no further than a change in eye color, a flush of green, which started around his throat and sometimes involved more of his circulatory system. That was all that happened 90% of the time; the green was there and gone in less than five minutes, just like it had been earlier this morning. They had dubbed this a Petite Liminal Episode.

The other ten percent of incidents, which did not go to a full on Hulk-out, varied, and they usually involved some attempt at intervention or communication between the Other Guy and someone else. They called these Liminal Grande Episodes. (Yes, this was Bruce's humorous but passive-aggressive way of giving shit to any researcher who got to write about it besides him, and Natasha thought it was funny, too, in a clunky restaurant-menu-Spanish kind of way.) The first time, Bruce had caught a flying piece of Tony's malfunctioning suit when they were repairing and upgrading VERONICA. It had been headed almost straight at him, so it was more of a reflexive action than something he thought about. If it hadn't been for the color shift, the split seams on his clothes were the only evidence Bruce had "expanded," except of course that the piece of hardware weighed over 40 lbs. and he'd caught it with one hand. Everything happened just that fast. Tony, of course, thought the whole thing was amazingly cool and wanted Bruce to "Please-please-please do it again!" Natasha, who had been in the lab just observing, put her foot down and pointed out 1) neither Bruce nor the Other Guy was anyone's golden retriever, 2) they were inside a mostly glass building with civilians outside, and 3) no one wanted a full Hulk-out here in Manhattan, except for maybe General Ross. That had been the end of that. Natasha: 1. Science Bro Tony: 0.

Another time, on one of their few unsupervised days out of the Tower just anonymously walking the streets, Bruce had pulled a blue-haired texting tween out of a crosswalk inches ahead of a lumbering garbage truck. Again, his clothes had taken the brunt of the punishment and he'd had to work on his glasses' frames a bit because they were squished in his front shirt pocket. That was when they'd put in the order for more of his Avengers-uniform type pants and looked into designs for shirts as well. Developing some kind of footwear was on the to-do list.

The other two incidents happened in bed. (They didn't count what had happened before the Agreements were signed because it was no one else's business.) Natasha could take the credit herself for initiating both of those. The first time she had torn out a stitch from a healing knife wound and alarmed Bruce when she screamed and cursed in Russian. The lights had been on; otherwise, she would have missed "El Grande" happening completely. Bruce had been lying on his side reading near the edge of the bed when she screamed, and he fell backwards onto the floor. With a surprised intake of breath, his complexion had gone almost mossy and there was more of him as he completed a cat-like roll back onto his feet in a defensive crouch. He stayed like that, blinking in confusion for several moments before determining there wasn't an actual attack. As soon as it was clear she was going to be fine, he'd stroked her hair with one hand, and between one blink of his eyes and the next, the emerald green in his pupils was gone and Bruce was all back to his normal self again in less than a minute.

The next incident was probably the most significant. Natasha sometimes had sleep issues—okay, to be honest, night terrors. This Liminal Grande had started with her in a full-scale panic attack during a nightmare that left her thrashing and struggling. She had gotten in a couple of body blows on Bruce before she came to her senses. He had simply held her at arm's length until she quit struggling. Bruce then cradled her in his over-sized arms and held her to him the rest of the night. When she woke up, hours late for the gym, he was still propped up half sitting against the headboard with his legs almost reaching the foot of the bed, and she was curled up half on his lap and half in his arms. His broadened face had a sad, determined look as he stared at her with very green eyes, "OKAY, TASHA?" She'd nodded her head and he seemed to relax and then contract almost immediately back to normal. This was the closest she'd seen the Other Guy come to being dominant in this state, but Bruce remembered everything afterward.

Bruce had crashed for the rest of the morning. When he woke up, he said he'd had a "talk" with the Other Guy while they watched her sleep most of the night. They had set up some ground rules and now had a better understanding of each other. It turned out to be a major breakthrough. Bruce had come to the realization that since he had quit fighting and trying to actively reject or exile the Other Guy, their coexistence had become much less confrontational and stressful. This was good because Bruce had told her he had the sinking feeling he'd been losing ground for the past few years and was in danger of, at some point, not coming back to his normal state. Being open to the Other Guy made Bruce more prone to these Liminal episodes, but the results had been quite positive overall. By giving the Other Guy access to "face time," he seemed more comfortable and less wary, even a bit curious at times, but seldom to the point of taking over unless asked. She lived in dread of the day that disagreement happened, but they would deal with it when and if it occurred.

Natasha had to constantly remind herself that, as well as she felt she could read the Other Guy and as cooperative as he had been, the Big Guy was not a lap dog or a toddler or a big cuddly plush toy. He had the capacity to turn from one moment to the next, and he was perfectly capable of having his own separate agenda. As much as he was like Bruce (admit it or not, Dr. Banner), they were not one and the same, but they had plenty in common. It was in everyone's best interests to get along and work together as much as possible. Natasha's self-assigned mission was to facilitate this partnership as much as she could, support Bruce, and advocate for the Other Guy. She doubted this was what Fury had envisioned when he assigned her to bring Bruce in from Kolkata years ago; it certainly hadn't been on her radar. Nevertheless, she knew this was where she could do the most good in the world right now, and despite all the negotiated requirements and restrictions attached to the treaty-sized Johannesburg Agreements, she could not remember being happier or feeling more free than she'd been in the past six months. Her work with the Avengers got her (and sometimes Bruce and the Other Guy) out of the Tower and helped take the red out of her ledger, but there was also the stability of having a home and a sense of family. Yes, it was as good as a dream, but they were living it, and she and their allies had moved mountains to make it happen.

Bruce was now talking to himself… no, the Other Guy, in the mirror. He took a step away from the counter and almost looked like he relaxed back into himself. The towel slid off his hips and hit the floor. He stood there naked with a worried look on his face, which she could see in the mirror as she wrapped her arms around him from behind.

"Sometimes I think he's riding you like one of those vodou spirits." Bruce looked at her skeptically. "An iwa, a god you can invite in with the proper rituals. If you're accepted, you become the conduit for prophecy. Did he leave you a message, Doc?"

"Uh, not really. It just occurred to me we're on the same page now, but what happens when we're not?"

She turned him around, stepping in close and rubbing his smoothly shaven jaw. He was completely dry and still putting off body heat. "I don't know, Doc, but we'll deal with it when and if it comes up." Natasha touched the side of his neck where the last of the verdant tinge was receding.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" he asked.

"Pretty much over it." She ran her fingers through the softly curling hair at the back of his neck. Bruce wrapped his warm arms around her, bending down to touch his forehead to hers. They held each other close and ignored the rest of the world for a few more minutes.


	6. Chapter 6

6: I'll Be Back on Sunday

Bruce's phone on the nightstand went off with Tony's current "Highway to Hell" ringtone. Bruce picked it up, "Hey. Thanks for the wake-up call, Tony. I'm getting my clothes on right now. No, I don't think I own a bowtie anymore. Why?" Bruce was looking perplexed. "I'm putting you on speaker, so I can avoid bashing my knees into something."

"I'm just saying, it's a Bill Nye kind of look. Pack a lab coat. What else are you wearing? The new TechUWear stuff was delivered yesterday, so expect to take that for a road test. Please tell me you bought some decent suits."

"Relax, Pepper and Natasha picked everything out down to the socks."

"You didn't remember to get your hair cut did you? Or have you just used those damn clippers and buzzed it down to the scalp again?"

"You know, I can dress myself. I can take care of my hair, and I even shaved like a big boy this morning."

"Good, because you need to take grooming seriously at this dog and pony show. I see the presentation is uploaded. Pep says the bags are already in the car. You have thirty minutes left to grab some breakfast, kiss that pretty spider good-bye, and meet me in the garage."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll see you down there." Bruce turned the phone off. "Wound for sound like always."

"Tony lives for this stuff. I think he misses the CEO 'dog and pony show' a bit."

"Well, he can have all of it that he wants. You know how much I hate it. I think they would have had me write, 'I'm sorry for all the horrible things my monumental fuck-ups have caused,' on a chalkboard a million times if they could." He knew he was getting worked up, but he had to get it out. "I couldn't stand these things when I was in academia or when I worked for the military, and this conference will be ten times worse because the media will be all over it. I feel like there is a target on my back and it's open season. Frankly, having to participate in 'professional development' really is as punitive a part of the agreement as the restrictions and the invasion of our privacy."

"Speaking of that," Natasha said dryly, "Do you want me to enter the notes on the 'Grande' before you leave?"

"No," he finally seemed to be calming back down, "but thanks for offering, Nat. It's better that I do it for consistency's sake. I'm not going to submit them until I get back and go over the rest of the data anyway."

"You're the only person I know who does a data dump on a Monday instead of a Friday," she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"Well, I may hate it, but I feel obligated to do it right. Who knows what a fresh set of eyes on it might find."

"Tony said the new stretch-tech clothing is here?"

"Yah, I packed some. There's more of it in the drawer. They sent like a dozen of everything."

Natasha took a look in the indicated drawer and pulled out what looked like compression gear, but a good bit lighter. "Wow, I just got you wearing grownup boxers, and this stuff looks as if it fits like a second skin. Have you tried it on yet?"

"No, not that one, just the first prototype a month ago. Here, let me put it on." She tossed the shorts to him. They were black going on, but quickly changed color as they warmed up to his well above-average body temperature to a dark shade of purple or aborigine.

"Well, the color change is weird (don't let Clint see them), but at least they don't say 'Stark' across your butt. How do they feel?"

"Not bad." He squirmed a bit and adjusted. They didn't have a traditional waistband like one would expect. Natasha took out another pair and flipped them wrong side out, there wasn't a regular weave on the fabric either. It looked like interconnected spider webbing or something equally organic without parallel lines. It felt like a cotton and silk blend.

"Any shirts this time?" she asked.

"Yah, the white ones. Like those are going to stay white if the Big Guy ends up wearing them."

Natasha pulled out one of the shirts. It had a similar construction but the fabric was even lighter. At first glance, it looked like a pretty normal white sleeveless undershirt if you made one out of silk.

She held it up by the shoulders, "Here, give it a shot."

Bruce slipped into it. "At least they're comfortable. Hey, look at this." The meeting edge of the shorts and shirt meshed together and sealed. As they both watched, the teamed-up garments seemed to adjust and customize the fit. "Well, that was rather impressive." Then Bruce's phone chimed and he answered it. "Whoa, it's the clothes. It says there are 'leggings', too?"

Feeling a little unsettled by the AI-ishness, Natasha pulled out a couple of what looked like opaque black hose, "Here's the right and here's the left," she reported as she noted the small indicators. Bruce pulled them on over his calves and knees and they did the weird seal-up move again.

"I don't know if that's more sexy or creepy," she said as she noted the marrying of the pieces and then the color shifted to match the shorts. "Is this Tony's work or a contractor?"

"Tony's and my design initially, but the team at TechUWear clearly had a good time riffing and improving along the way." The phone chimed again. "All ready to go," he noted as he brought up the accompanying app. "It overlaps some of the information we were already collecting, but we want to see how it betas out before we interface with the complete system."

"I don't need to tell you this makes me a little nervous about the data and the potential for tracking you."

"Me, too, but it will check off at least two requirements in the Agreements, so we're taking a calculated risk and betting we can 'out science' any infiltrators or glitches. Since I knew you'd want to check it, the files for all of it are on my desktop. You have my access codes, so knock yourself out. Damn, I'm going to have to do a tutorial before I can figure out how to get these off again."

They needed to get moving, so she started handing Bruce his dress clothes off of hangers. "Just don't wait till you have to pee before you look that up. By the way, which two requirements?"

"The data reporting requirements and, uh," Bruce went from zero to complete blush, "the indecent exposure one." He got to the top of the dress shirt, realized he was one off, and had to restart the buttons.

"What 'indecent exposure one'?"

"It was in there in one of those subsections that got tacked on at the end to get some politician to sign off."

"Yah, I think I know who that is. So what exactly does it say?"

"In so many words, keep my ass covered, but it's not my ass that has to stay covered as much as the Other Guy's. He really does not care. If this doesn't work, I think we're down to body paint." Natasha went ahead and slid the new belt through the loops on the tailored slacks and handed them over. "What's concerning me more now is how much I've been riding the line and slipping into the Liminal range. It's one thing to start greening up here at home, but when it happens in public, I'm afraid it's going to freak some people out, even if it's just a Petite. Tony and I talked about wearing contacts and even makeup at one point, but I think that makes it worse." Natasha was pressing her lips together and trying not to laugh. "I know, 'Ha-ha!' I don't want to get up there and look ridiculous."

"What did Malory think?" Natasha hadn't liked using an "Image Consultant" at first, but Mrs. Gupta had proven her worth ten times over. She knew how to smooth out the rough edges so Bruce could appear in the best light possible when he couldn't avoid being, literally in this case, on a public stage. She also turned out to be great at managing damage control and acting as an able and intelligent spokesperson who wasn't too closely associated with the Avengers. Malory reminded Natasha of Martha Stewart if Martha had grown up in New York with parents from Northern India and avoided glue guns. She could intimidate, charm, and wrangle as the job required from getting service people to deliver on time to soothing bruised egos and ruffled feathers among the highest of social and political elites. Tony had kept her on retainer after the Agreements had been signed, so Natasha was pretty sure Tony had pulled her into the planning for this trip at some point.

"She told Tony my 'twinkly green eyes' were going to be among the least of our worries if I split out the back of my suit for some unnecessary emergency, so that's when we got the TechUWear people working on it and hired more security. The conference people were actually pretty cooperative; no, make that relieved." Bruce sat down on the bed to tie his shoes. "And before you ask, yes, Mrs. G. arrived in Cincinnati Tuesday and will be meeting us upon our arrival at Lunkin Air Field."

Natasha smiled and bit her lower lip again, "Good, you two kids needed a chaperone anyway."

Bruce stood up and she gave him a once over, handed him his phone, slipped his glasses into his front shirt pocket, straightened his collar, and ran her hand through his thick hair. He took her hand and kissed the back of it before pulling her in close. "Thank you for being my valet. It feels so weird for me to be going and you staying here."

"It had to happen sometime, Doc."

"I'm going to miss you so much," he whispered into her ear as they both held each other tight.

"Come on, Doc. Let's get you a bagel or something," somebody had to get this show on the road.

Bruce grabbed his leather jacket off the back of the chair and checked the pockets for his wallet and earphones as he put it on. He took a moment to send out a quick text before heading to the kitchen. Natasha was splitting the sesame bagels expertly on plates at the kitchen counter, so Bruce grabbed their travel mugs out of the dishwasher and poured their automatically brewed coffee in both. "I want you to promise me you'll make an appointment to go see a doctor while I'm gone, please?"

"Okay," she said rather reluctantly. "Cross my heart and all that." She handed him his bagel with a smear, and he wrapped it up in a paper napkin. He grabbed his battered leather valise and slipped the strap over his shoulder before grabbing the bagel and coffee back up. Natasha stuck an apple in his jacket pocket for later. She opened the door for him and decided to ride down to the garage to see them both off. Neither she nor Bruce said anything in the elevator, but Bruce made faces at her and she made them back as they pinged past the usual floors and finally stopped at what was the lowest level. Yep, they were two dorks in an elevator. They stuck their tongues out at each other one last time before the door opened. This floor might as well have been a vault because that's where Tony kept some of his best toys, at least in Natasha's opinion; Bruce might disagree. As the doors slid open, the first thing to greet them was Tony's disapproving throat clearing and an impatient finger tapping his wristwatch. He had pulled away from Pepper who still had an arm around his waist and a bemused smile on her face.

Bruce tried to check his watch and nearly dumped his coffee, "I'm not late," he said almost indignantly. Natasha knew they weren't late either, but this was part of their little song and dance routine. It was almost a ritual. There was a certain amount of comfort in watching it, but Bruce was right, it felt weird for her to be the one who was staying behind. _Had to happen sometime._ As the guys continued to nitpick over details, she rolled her eyes at Pepper who shook her head, hair still loose, no makeup, and slippers on her feet. So, Bruce hadn't been far off the mark there either.

Tony's phone chimed with the TechUWear ringtone, "Holy crap, you have them on!" Bruce pursed his lips and nodded as he walked past Tony to put his bag in the car and set down his breakfast on the top of the vehicle. Tony was clutching his phone and scrolling, "Bud, I can tell you the temp anywhere on your body that's covered and estimates for the rest, pulse rate, lung capacity, energy spent, calories consumed, radiation levels, chemical process breakdowns, liquids, and solids."

"Yah, literally a shitload of data," Bruce said in a dry deadpan. He was clearly thinking the bloom was a little off the TechUWear rose, yet not wanting to rein in Tony's enthusiasm. "Hi, Pepper, how are you this morning?" he said warmly.

"I'm good, Bruce," she leaned over to give him a side hug around Tony, who might come up for air in a few minutes.

"Who's got the monitor?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, just a second," Tony started tapping windows closed and pocketed his phone. He then fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a thick plastic wristband with a watch-sized monitoring component. "Well, at least the court fashionistas sent a black one this time."

"Well, darn, I thought that fluorescent orange one really brought my outfit together," Bruce quipped, hiding his deep-seated irritation. _People died_ , he reminded himself, _this is nothing compared to that. Nothing I do will completely make up for it… but I have to try_.

The silence felt more than a little uncomfortable, so Natasha stepped forward and took the court-ordered device from Tony and held her hand out for Bruce's arm. He pulled his left arm out of his jacket sleeve and unfastened the cufflink, so she could fit the device above his wristwatch where it would be out of sight. _At least it's not cuffs or shackles_. Her heart was suddenly in her throat, and she swallowed hard as the grotesque similarities to their "lullaby" hit home. The parallels weren't lost on Tony or Pepper, who was starting to tear up. Tony was silent for once, but his jaw muscles worked with barely controlled anger. Natasha made sure the device was operational, then pulled his shirtsleeve back down and replaced the cufflink he handed to her. Bruce maneuvered his shoulder back into the jacket and stuck his arm back into the sleeve. "Hey, I'll flip you for who gets to drive," he said to Tony.

"Rock, paper, scissors."

"Lizard, Spock."

"Stop it, you'll just both keep saying Spock," Natasha said.

"I might have eventually said 'Lizard'," Bruce complained.

"Fine," said Tony, and tossed Bruce the keys. "Just like pity sex, Banner."

Natasha raised an eyebrow and turned around to give Tony her meanest stink eye. He quickly covered his mouth with one of his hands and mimed an _oh-my_ look as he crossed his fingers to ward her evil look off with the other one. In a show of solidarity, Pepper then punched him in the arm.

"You know what," said Bruce, "you better drive because I'll have cream cheese all over the steering wheel."

"You're not eating that in my Beemer."

"That's not a BMW, that's a Volvo."

"Well, okay then."

Bruce tossed Tony back the keys and wrapped his hands around Natasha's waist, pulling her to him one last time. "I will be back on Sunday. No matter what. I promise. No detours. No running."

"Cross your heart," she said, tracing an X over his left breast. She leaned in close to whisper, "Do not let Tony convince you to wear that tech clothing at night," and she pulled back to look him in the eyes.

His eyebrows were raised in a question, and she gave him a look that said, "Trust me." Bruce nodded in understanding. She wanted to wrap her legs around him and make love again, but she settled for kissing him long and deep. Bruce surprised her by working his right hand between them and squeezing her breast. She retaliated by biting his lower lip.

"God, you two. I'd say, 'Get a room,' but you already have a room and a living room and a kitchen and a shower and a lab bench and... Ouch!" Pepper went right for the ribs and a lip lock combo to shut Tony up. She obviously had the move down pat.

A moment later, Natasha and Bruce both disengaged, and he retrieved his breakfast from the top of the car. She stepped back and thought her silent prayers. She didn't pray much, but for him she made the effort.

Pepper and Tony came up for air and she fended off his last grab for her ass. It gave Natasha and Bruce a chance to coordinate their synchronous eye rolls. Tony finally slipped behind the wheel and fussed a bit with the mirrors after adjusting the seat. He checked his watch. The decoy Quinjet would have just departed from the roof. Time to motor on.

"Hey, Stark," Natasha called, "tell Mal 'Hi!' for me."

"Will do!" he replied and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring wink as he hit the button and his darkened window glided up. He backed the car out and shifted into gear. In a moment, they were out of sight and the sound of the engine was fading into echoes.

Pepper gently put her hands on Natasha's shoulders and slipped into giving her a one-armed a hug. "They are going to be fine. Bruce is going to knock 'em dead and it's one more requirement off the list."

Natasha nodded and pressed her lips together in a forced smile. Damn it, she was not going to go to mush with Pepper. She had other things she needed to do.

Pepper's sympathy smile then shifted into something much more assertive. "Come upstairs with me. I made you an appointment with my favorite doctor, and we have just enough time for me to get dressed and go with you. Don't even think about giving me any shit because I promised to get you there, and I called in a favor to do it."

"Okay," said Natasha, eyebrows raised, "wouldn't want to waste one of those."

"Damn straight."

"You know that speech would be a lot more intimidating if you weren't wearing the bunny slippers."

"Move it, Romanoff, I blocked off the morning, so we can do brunch afterward and maybe go shopping."

Natasha laughed and got on the elevator. Yah, she was going to kill Bruce for this.


	7. Chapter 7

7: I'm Not Always Just Me

As soon as the car's window was up, Tony gave Bruce an annoyed look. "Really, you told her about Mrs. G.?"

Bruce had just taken a bite of bagel, so he chewed and washed it down with coffee before he replied. "I didn't know it was a secret, and, besides, I think it made Natasha feel a little better about this flying circus. At least we have a competent ringmaster now." Tony cleared his throat again. "Not that you didn't have a handle on things, but Mal sees the big and the small pictures better than both of us."

"Okay, point taken. Well, it will be nice to work with her again."

"The other big plus is this will keep Natasha from feeling like she ought to be there and going all rogue operative on someone."

"Please," said Tony, "there is no way of stopping that."

"Well, I think this morning she'll be busy enough. Did Pepper tell you what I texted her about?"

"No, what are you texting my girl, Banner?"

"It was kind of weird this morning. While we were getting ready, Natasha threw up. Nothing serious that I could tell, and she was immediately over it, but she insists it wasn't food poisoning. I don't know. I've never seen her physically ill before."

Tony gave him a quizzical sideways look, "Uh, Bruce, has Papa Clint had that talk with you yet, the one with the birds and the bees and the care and treatment of pretty little spiders?"

"I know. That was the first or second thing to pop into my mind, too. However," Bruce held up his bagel to silence Tony, "even if by some two-hundred-million-to-one odds that a miracle has happened and both of us had a fertile moment, the timing is wrong. She may be late with her 'little friend's visit', but morning sickness shouldn't happen for another month."

"You had time to Google that?"

"No," he said with some sadness creeping into his voice, "I just remember when it happened before, a long time ago." Bruce shoved some more bagel in his mouth and chewed slowly.

"So," Tony said after a few minutes, "that leaves what? Stress. Over exercising. Side effects from certain medications? Alcohol? Something more serious internally?"

Bruce swallowed and took another drink of coffee. "That's where texting Pepper comes in. I made Natasha promise to go get this checked out, but unless a bone is broken or there is a major amount of pain or blood, the odds of getting her to see a doctor aren't favorable. She'd rather have me work on her than one of the medics at the Avengers Complex. She doesn't even have a primary care person here in the city."

"Okay, now I got it. You have unleashed the Pepper upon her." Tony found this highly amusing. "Banner, you are devious and underhanded and you play dirty. Underneath that goofy, huggable brilliance I so love beats the heart of a true Machiavellian. I solute you, sir!" He offered Bruce a fist bump, which the physicist hesitantly returned. Under his breath Tony said, "Bruce, you are gonna last maybe two seconds when we get back on Sunday."

"Thanks," said Bruce, and he finished his bagel and coffee, which was a good thing because Tony was having fun maneuvering through early traffic and around corners to get out of the city and over to his private landing strip in New Jersey.

"So, you said the odds are two hundred million to one, but that can't be right. We both know it would be lower than that."

"Right, that was hyperbole of course, but it's still not close to likely," Bruce replied.

"Au contraire, let's think about the possibilities and the math."

Bruce was not at all sure he liked the direction Tony had veered with the conversation, but he was game to play along. "Okay," he began, "we both know Natasha was sterilized after her completion of the Red Room Program when she was barely a young adult in her, what, middle teens? I would guess they clamped or tied off her fallopian tubes rather than removed any organs because 1) she has two small scars that would coincide with having endoscopic surgery and 2) her cycles are present and otherwise quite normal as is the rest of her as far as I can tell."

"So, what is the failure rate?" Tony asked.

"Failure rate? If the surgery is done correctly, it would be zero."

"There's the rub, 'if it's done correctly' is the important part. You're assuming the snipping and tying and/or clamping or plugging was done correctly in the first place AND, even if it was done right, it's something that is going to stay that way for a decade or more."

Bruce already had his glasses on and his phone out pulling up information. There it was in a nice, neat chart. "Crap, you may have a point," he murmured. It wasn't a large percentage, but there were sterilization failures and the statistics, especially for the methods blocking and clamping the tubes, went up over time. In one study they nearly went into the double digits. He compared the information on the Centers for Disease Control's website with Planned Parenthood's and a British academic page and an Australian study. Shit. Shit. _Shit._ Bruce put his phone in his jacket pocket, took off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. How could he have had such tunnel vision? No kidding. _Oh, shit._ _Banner, you are an idiot_. If he'd overlooked this, what else had he missed? His mind was starting to reel, which led him back to the other side of this equation. "I need to get tested."

"You need to what? … Oh!" Tony took a quick look at Bruce. He wasn't so much green as pale. "Are you okay? Do I need to pull over? Puked up cream cheese is way worse than the sesame seeds you're getting everywhere."

"Not unless you see a walk-in fertility counseling clinic or a urologist's office with a lab."

"What? You're joking. Are you saying you've never had your boys tested? Not with all the samples you've had to submit?"

"Tony, what samples?" Bruce threw up his hands, "Paragraph two of the Reforms section of the Agreements, right at the top. I'm paraphrasing, 'No blood, bodily fluids, or tissue samples except for defendant-approved research projects, which are limited to defendant-designated parties and facilities.' What they get is the data. That's it unless I chose to submit samples or work with them myself and share the data. I do NOT give out cell or blood samples after the Mr. Blue debacle, and I've never given out semen, period. Ross and his buddies would find a way to get their hands on any biological materials and weaponize them or create another monster somehow."

"You're telling me you have no idea if your boys are swimmers."

Bruce grimaced and clasped his hands behind his head and rocked for a few moments. "Yah, that's essentially right." He'd told Natasha to "do the math" during their heart-to-heart at the Barton's farmhouse months ago. "God, I'm an idiot!"

"You're not an idiot, Bruce. You just made some fairly logical assumptions. Besides, you two were taking precautions and wearing protection, right?"

Bruce just closed his eyes, sunk further into the seat, and bit his lower lip.

"Right? Bruce?"

"Uh, 95% of the time," he said with a very pained look.

Tony stared ahead. He started to say something then changed his mind. He started again, but it took him a few moments before he asked, "Did you go to some wacky religious school without sex education as a kid because I'm having trouble reconciling who I know you are with your actual behavior here."

"I know," said Bruce. "When you deconstruct it like that, it seems pretty stupid in hindsight. I'm not making excuses, but both of us had dismissed the possibility of being able to conceive for most of our adult lives. It just wasn't going to happen. _It couldn't_. I should have gotten tested a decade ago, but how was I going to give a sample without Hulking out? Sex or even masturbating was out of the question for years. Back then I set off radiation monitors every time my blood pressure went up, so I thought it was a pretty safe assumption that I was infertile since that's what massive doses of radiation does to sperm production. I'm supposed to be sterile."

"So, how much radiation do you put off and when? You are still using the radiation-neutralizing wonder foam? Please tell me you crazy kids are still doing that."

"Yes, that's been 100% from day one. I should have put in a prophylactic component, but I didn't judge it necessary at the time. The radiation is part of a puzzle that Dr. Cho's group is working on right now. Have you looked at any of the raw data?"

"Honestly, I've only looked at the summary charts at the end of each month. There was something odd going on with your temperature, but it wasn't too out of whack for you."

"It was getting to the point that I didn't think the readings were accurate. Well, they aren't _in_ accurate, but they don't tell the whole story. Unless I'm the Big Guy, the radiation scans indicate it stays concentrated inside my bones now. There isn't a lot of older data to use for a comparison, but if Ross's people had been smart enough, they could have tracked me via the gamma radiation I was putting off back then. In the past, I think S.H.I.E.L.D. was using that method to keep tabs on me. Natasha believes the data was erased and possibly stolen before she did the big data dump after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, but we can't confirm that. It may be a moot point because I don't think anyone could use that method for tracking me now. If fact, I seem to be metabolizing the radiation as it's released out of the marrow, through the bones, and into the muscles and other soft tissues."

Tony took a quick and serious glance at Bruce, "You realize the implications here, right? You're practically a living arc reactor."

"Well, yes, I'm a biological version of a gamma reactor, and apparently, I've upgraded to a more efficient design."

"How much heat do you put off?"

Bruce held out his left hand and motioned for Tony to give him his.

"Why, Bruce, I didn't know you felt that way… Whoa, this is an extremity and you are beyond feverish! Are you sure you're not going through menopause?" Tony moved his hand to Bruce's shirtfront and pressed his palm against Bruce's chest for a moment. "You are at least 104 degrees."

"I would say that's pretty accurate, but you could check the TechUWear app and know down to the third decimal."

"How does Natasha stand you?"

"You have climate control in the Tower; we adjust it down."

"I do not remember the Big Guy running this hot. Granted, he's not the touchy-feely sort with me, but do you have any readings on him?"

"There were some older ones: what little was recovered from Dr. Stern's data after Blonsky trashed the lab and from the incident in the Helicarrier, so that mostly leaves us with what we've collected over the past few years. It doesn't look like the Big Guy's temps run hot, unless he's using a lot more energy and putting out traces of radiation. My guess is that he somehow uses the heat along with the radiation to help produce the mass. I don't have the same need of it for producing mass, so I radiate the heat, which could be the converted radiation."

Tony's mind was racing ahead down the path to future adaptions and extrapolating them out, "How's your appetite?"

"So far it's still there. I think as long as I keep eating, there won't be a problem."

"If you do have an issue with overheating at some point, I'd keep drinking, but try fasting to see if you start converting the heat into energy. You don't appear to be doing a lot of sweating?"

"I can sweat just fine like anyone else when it's appropriate, but now, apparently I've adjusted to a warmer norm."

"Yah, you're your own little climate change experiment."

They were exiting the expressway now, so it wouldn't be too long until they pulled into the airfield.

"If you don't mind me asking," Tony glanced over at Bruce and quirked an eyebrow, "how are things going with the Liminal experiences?"

Bruce bit his lower lip and exhaled, "How much do you want to hear?"

"All of it you want to tell me."

Bruce took a few moments to gather his thoughts as he watched the urban landscape turn into suburban neighborhoods with single-family housing. "Some of this you already know. I'm not always just me, but I'm not struggling against it anymore. We're together a lot in my head. He'd be happy if I just left him alone most days, but there is some understanding there that things work better when we try to have some trust and not be at odds. There are times when he feels compelled to be in the same headspace with me, and I'm getting a pretty good handle on what draws us together. Concern for Natasha is at the top of the list. An adrenaline rush is still effective. Being at the angry edge is… frankly, exhausting, even if it does keep him close and available, so we only go there when necessary. He has a tough time with sensory and emotional overloading, so I try not to dump anymore on him than necessary. The psychiatrist thinks what I've done since childhood, in order to function, is to wall up all my negative emotions and trauma, which is also what's made that part of me the Hulk."

Tony was quiet for several long minutes. Bruce and he had talked about this before, but it had been months now since he'd brought it up, and Bruce was never one for volunteering something this personal. Clearly, he had been making progress in what sounded like a positive direction, but it didn't sound like the Hulk was completely onboard yet. He finally asked, "Does that part of you understand any of this? That it was a coping measure, something you had no choice in doing when you were what, eight years old?"

"It was more like four. I don't know. He can be like a child who's been locked away and neglected himself. He has so many 'deficits' in communication and socialization, it's hard to gage how much he comprehends, especially the abstract concepts, but I think he gets the emotions. I'm pretty sure he knows I'm sorry. I may finally be off the shit list, but he hasn't taken me off probation. He's still very wary of me trying to suppress or wall him up. It's taken a life time to get here, so we're not going to be all fixed in a few months."

"Is the plan to integrate you two?"

"I don't know yet. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that we're a kind of gestalt and not completely separate beings. I know the Other Guy will have a hard time with the idea that we are the same person since we fractured so early. To answer your question, I doubt full integration is going to be a goal."

Tony nodded, "Fair enough." Tony turned down a well-maintained but unmarked road.

Bruce's phone hummed and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the text. "It's Pepper. They're on their way to the general practitioner/obgyn's office. 'No drugging or handcuffs needed'." Bruce texted back a thank you and a smiley. He gratefully let go of a small amount of the tension he was carrying.

Tony pulled up to the gate and chatted with the security guard for a moment before pulling through the checkpoint and continuing on to the hangar. He drove past the parking spaces on the side of the building and straight into the hanger.

The pilot and copilot of the custom Learjet 85 were apparently going through a final check and conferring with a mechanic. Tony looked over at Bruce, "Any last words?" Bruce smiled and shook his head. "Great, let's go do some science!"


	8. Chapter 8

8: Like Two Normal People

Natasha stabbed her pen at the endless medical forms and tried not to show her irritation at the redundancy of the questionnaires and other necessary sheets. Pepper was sitting next to her and replying to a text from Tony, which was a selfie of Bruce and him on the plane. Bruce looked about as relaxed as he could on a small jet, which was something just short of going in front of a firing squad. "If you dare take a picture of us, Pepper, I will find some way to get even."

"Oops! Sorry." Pepper squeaked with a grimace and then smiled apologetically since she'd already pressed send. She showed Natasha the picture, which was kind of funny if you weren't the one in the hoodie and dark glasses filling out the paperwork. Natasha smiled and gave Pepper one of her milder evil looks with an eyebrow cocked over the top of her glasses. She then walked up to the front desk and turned in the pile of papers and clipboard. There had been plenty of blanks because of the gaps in her memories or just not knowing what her family's medical history was.

"I'm sure you're going to like Grace, Dr. Vining, that is. I've been going to her for a long time," said Pepper. "It was really good luck that there was a cancelation this morning."

"Yah," Natasha agreed as she sat back down. She'd been thinking about seeing the medical staff at the Avengers facility, but Pepper had had other ideas. Yah, Bruce was going to pay for this later. "So, let me get this straight. Dr. Vining is both a General Practitioner and Gynecologist. Isn't that a little unusual?"

"Maybe a little, but it gives her a chance to specialize in women's healthcare. Plus, there's no chance Tony is going to be seeing the same doctor." They both laughed at that. "They also have more GPs and Pediatricians, another OBGyn or two, and a married couple who are fertility specialists. It's a good-sized practice."

"That would explain why it's such a busy place, even early on a Thursday morning."

"Most of those folks on that side of the room are here for the fertility people. Lots of patients come here early for testing first thing in the morning."

Pepper's phone buzzed and she looked to see who it was. "Damn, I'm going to have to take this."

"No problem. Go ahead," said Natasha, and the tall strawberry blonde stepped out in the hall.

Natasha picked out a random magazine from the coffee table in front of her and pretended to read while she was actually people watching. She surreptitiously observed the other people in the waiting room and tried to imagine their reasons for being there: a half dozen women ranging between twenty and forty years, and most of them filling out that devilish stack of paperwork; a trio of guys in the forty-something range looking nervous (leaving samples, no doubt), one young couple looking quite pregnant, and another couple in their forties. The woman from the older couple kept stealing glances at the young pregnant woman who was several months along and in full blooming glow. The emotions, the longing were so evident on the woman's face that Natasha felt like she was intruding into her personal space just by observing, so she buried her nose deeper into the magazine and tried to lose herself in a recipe for "Never-Fail Fudge". It didn't work.

She closed her eyes. This was just stress. It was that simple. She'd had a few late periods before and once she got off an intense job, her cycle settled back to normal. That's all this is. She didn't want to start thinking about cancer or other illnesses until she absolutely had to do it. She stole one more glance at the two couples and their little pantomime playing out. The young father-to-be had his face pressed into his mobile phone playing a silly game and wasting time. For some reason, this irritated Natasha. He ought to be spending this moment holding his partner's hand or rubbing her feet, she thought sarcastically. Natasha almost snorted out loud. The man from the older couple was actually holding his wife's hand and watching her react to the younger woman. He finally squeezed her hand and pulled his wife into an embrace. Good for him. Damn, she missed Bruce right now.

To distract herself, Natasha thought back to the day they were at the safe house. A mere six months had gone by, but so many things had happened that it seemed like more than a lifetime ago. The picturesque cottage was used as a safe house and a retreat, but hadn't seen much action since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. except for the occasional tech crew doing maintenance and upgrades. However, the reason the new S.H.I.E.L.D. had gone to the trouble of holding onto the acreage wasn't just the cottage, but the airfield hidden in the overgrown hedge at the back of the isolated property.

Once they had gotten off the phone with Tony and Maria, Natasha rose from Bruce's lap to close the living room drapes while he had attended to the other rooms that had windows. "Well, Doc, six hours to waste. What do you want to do first?" she asked as they met back in the kitchen.

He looked at her as if he were drinking her in with his eyes, "Do you really need to ask?"

"No," she said, "I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page. We have had a few near misses." They both stepped closer. His hands were trembling as he cupped her face with them and kissed her tentatively on the lips. He pulled back for an uncertain moment as if he should have asked permission. She wrapped her arms around him. He was absolutely warm and humming with excited energy. She was incredibly excited too, but Natasha was just better at not showing it unless she wanted.

"Kiss me again, Bruce," she said, her voice getting low and throaty. This time he committed and gently met her lips, tasting her slowly and then more assertively while she responded in kind. He began to kiss her face and her neck, using his lips and his tongue to apply tender pressure. Damn, she knew he had been holding back… apparently a lot.

He whispered in her ear, "Tell me what you want me to do because I want to make you as happy as I possibly can."

This gave her pause. What did she want? Here was this beautiful burning soul in front of her willing to do whatever she asked, and the question threw her because it really hadn't been up to her in… God, had it ever really been up to her how these things started or went unless it was mark? Natasha also knew there was much more to consider since she was potentially working with more than one person. She pulled back a bit so she could see his face, "Okay, I want us to take our time here together, and I want to see what it's like just to act like two normal people. How would we do this if we could do it the way we wanted?" She liked to watch him think on his feet. She'd left her meaning rather ambiguous because she wanted to see what he'd do and how he'd interpret it. What was Bruce's baseline, his comfort zone?

He smiled and thought for a moment, "I'm not sure if I know what 'normal' means anymore, but I'd like to pamper you a bit, take our time while we have some without a lot of interruptions or emergencies to distract us. I want to focus on nothing but you."

"Actually, that sounds really nice, Bruce."

"Okay, this will be more theory than practice since I can't take you for a long walk or out on a real date—maybe dinner and a movie or the opera—so we'll have to pick it up from when we come home. If there were an actual tub here I'd bathe you, use bubbles and candles, a glass of wine, and do it right. But, since necessity is the mother of invention and it's still early in the day, let me try this instead." He cleared the tea mug out of the sink, turned the stopper, and started running warm water into the basin. She noticed that some of his packed bags were in the corner, and he stepped over and pulled out a shaving kit and retrieved a fragrant bar of soap from a plastic bag. "The English have really nice natural soaps," he said blushing self-consciously, like that was something a guy like him shouldn't know about. He shut off the water and turned to her with a pleased smile. "Up you go," and Bruce smoothly lifted her to the countertop beside the sink. "If I can't do a proper bath, at least I can take care of your feet." He undid her sandals and let them drop to the floor. Then he rolled up her pant legs to her knees to keep them dry. "I don't have wine, but I do have some Fuller's or Crabbie's."

"I'll take a Fuller's please," Natasha said with a grin. "So you've gone local—soap and beverage-wise."

"When in the UK," he said as he retrieved a bottle of each from the fridge and uncapped them. They both gently tapped the bottles together, "Like normal people."

"Yes, just two normal people," she echoed.

Each of them took a draw, and he rolled up his shirtsleeves. He had another drink of ginger beer and set it aside. Bruce then ran his hands down her calves and turned her so he could bathe her feet. He used the soap and a towel to go over each toe in detail.

"It's probably a good thing if we slow down and talk for a bit because I need to update you on some things," he said. "If we're going to have sex, …" he eyed her with one of those adorable questioning looks that made her laugh, "just checking… there are some precautions we have to take that are _unique_ to my condition."

"Go ahead," she said stroking his forearm reassuringly.

"Right after the accident, I had absorbed so much gamma radiation that I wasn't safe to be around. One good thing that's happened over the years since is I've basically become a more efficient containment vessel; therefore, I'm safer to be around, at least in that respect. However, there are still some biohazards and some risks to you we need to consider. We're going to have to use condoms, at least till we're sure there isn't a radiation risk. That also means we have to scan and take readings, but luckily (Bruce made the hand sign for air quotes) 'there's an app for that' and Tony and I've tweaked it. This is all just part of my routine now. I've also been working on a neutralizing agent and the beta version is ready to try out as a foam." He paused to let this sink in.

"I don't think any of these will be a problem," Natasha stated firmly. In fact, it was rather amazing and even a bit flattering he'd spent so many hours of prep time and put so much consideration into this.

"Good, because that is the easy part." He chewed his lower lip for a moment, "The hard part is where does the Other Guy fit into this? You already know some of it. I used to be a slave to my pulse monitor because my heart rate combined with an adrenalin spike to trigger the transformation. Over time, I was able to get more control by using my anger and keeping him tethered at arm's length, but like we've talked about with the lullaby, sometimes I've not been sure if I'm going to come back without help. When I said earlier that I've been working with a team of therapists, that wasn't just for the cameras. One of them I've been working with is a pretty brave psychiatrist who's helping me break down some of the walls I've been building for most of my life. What that means for us is that the transition stage has gone from a few moments to something less predictable, but with other possibilities.

"Your eyes," she said, "that's what was happening earlier."

"Yes, that's one of the physical manifestations. Imagine pausing the transformation about 10% to 25% of the way through in no-man's land. I've been calling it the 'Liminal Stage' because it's like a threshold. It's still mostly me but he's there, too. How it's really going to affect the two of _us_ , Natasha, is that I have to at least leave that door unlocked or cracked all the time. I can't close him off completely anymore, and I don't know how he's going to react to us being together."

"I don't either, but you know I trust him." She finished her beer, "I suspect he'll be curious. I hope he's not too jealous or possessive because that's where I think this could go seriously wrong. Will you be able to give him some of your head space and let him observe if that's what he wants to do?"

"I'm working on it. He still doesn't completely trust me, but you obviously pique his curiosity." This is what worried Bruce the most: just how aggressive was the Other Guy going to be with Natasha? Tony might have quipped something crude about a ménage à trois, but Bruce knew his own feelings for Natasha and could only guess how many of them his doppelgänger mirrored. This was going to have to be Natasha's call, so he would have to respect that and have faith in her judgment. This was going to be hard, but Bruce was determined to give it a try. "Well, have I scared you off?"

"No, not in the least." She certainly meant that with all her heart.

He shook his head and gave her a lopsided smile. "You are crazy, lady, but so am I, especially when it comes to you." He had finished with her feet, so he removed the sink's plug to empty it. Bruce got a mischievous smirk on his face, "Hey, did you bring any nail polish with you?"

"No. Why? Oh, do you really think you're up for that?" she arched an eyebrow at him. This was awfully bold for him.

"Next time then. Did you know Tony does Pepper's toenails?" They both giggled. "Sometime, I want to shave your legs, too," he said with a wink and a nervous smile.

"Okay, now that I'll buy you're qualified for, even if it looks like you're a bit out of practice." She fondly rubbed his bearded jawline and he kissed her hand.

Once the water was gone, Bruce grabbed another towel from the drawer and began to dry her feet. He lifted first one and then the other foot to his lips where he sucked her toes till she laughed, and he planted kisses up to her knees. He opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of olive oil. "Improvising again," he said, and poured out a little in his palm before massaging each foot with his strong warm hands. Natasha couldn't help but groan with pleasure as he worked the tops, toes, balls, and arches. This she could go for every day of the week. Bruce was grinning at her as she opened her eyes. "That was absolutely orgasmic," she said, catching her breath.

"Good, I'm glad you liked it." He wiped the excess oil off his hands and finished his bottle of Crabbie's with a long swig. He then rested his head on her knees and embraced her lower legs. "What next, Natasha?"

"Why don't we get this experiment started, Doc? How about we go into the bedroom?"

"By all means," he replied, and lifted her off the counter and carried her into the bedroom where he laid her on the full-sized bed. "May I take off your clothes?"

"First, will you take off your shirt, Bruce?" He unbuttoned it slowly from the top down, pulled out the shirttail, slipped his arms out, and laid it over the back of a chair. He sat down on the side of the bed and turned so he could face her. She ran both hands across Bruce's chest, enjoying the feel of his chest hair. He had lost some weight, as if he had any extra to spare, but he was otherwise as toned and evenly muscled as she remembered. In fact, it looked like he'd been able to keep up at least part of the training program they'd worked out. She squeezed his arms and let her hands drift down his forearms. She then lifter her hands to stroke his face and his beard and smiled, a little bemused.

"I know. It's got to go. Do you want me to shave it off now?"

"Not yet," Natasha said, "Untie your hair."

Bruce slipped the band off his short ponytail, ran his hands through the back, and shook his hair out.

"Hello, Sampson or maybe it's Hector, Prince of Troy," she teased. Bruce tilted his head as he blushed deeply and adorably. She leaned forward to run her fingers through the wavy curls. "Hey, even Thor doesn't have curls like these."

He covered his face with his hands and slid them down to his chin. "I will never live this down."

Natasha thought there was no way he could possibly be more adorkable. "Dr. Banner, you are an attractive and sexy guy. You just don't know it yet. No worries about the hair, Lover; I have scissors in my bag. I can at least get you back to close to normal if that's what you want. Just don't use the clippers to buzz it all off."

"Don't worry, I won't." Now he shifted his attention to her, "Next on the agenda, I want to get you naked. May I?" He gestured toward her blouse.

"Okay, if I get to finish undressing you, too."

"As you wish," he said with a knowing smile and a wink.

"I don't know if Cap would get the reference, but I do." She leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. This time they were both more eager than tentative. Bruce unbuttoned her shirt and helped her shrug it off her shoulders. He managed to drape it over the bedpost as they continued kissing. He reached behind her with both hands to unhook her lacy black bra and managed it on the second try. He inhaled sharply as her breasts came free, and he draped the bra over her blouse. He again made eye contact before touching her—sure of what he wanted, but also wanting her approval.

"Yes," she murmured, "please, I want you to touch me. I love the feel of your hands on me."

He cupped her breasts in his hands, noting the freckles and the shades of pink and rose beneath the porcelain surface. "'Glory be to God for dappled things—'" he quoted as he stared into her hazel eyes, marveling at her and wondering what she was thinking.

"I'm not sure I've ever had Hopkins quoted to me," Natasha said. "Thank you. He's one of my favorites." _Wow, someone had been taking notes! She'd only brought that up once, and it had been six months ago._

His brown eyes were dark and dilated with excitement. He gently thumbed her breasts before leaning closer to suck each nipple just enough to harden them. He continued to gently explore each breast with his hands as he kissed her left shoulder, working his way across her collarbone to the hollow of her neck. He paused as he reached a scar, licking it as if he could taste what trauma had caused it. He wanted so much to take her hurt and pain away, but he knew they were what made her.

She worked her hands through his hair, enjoying his attentions, the feel of him, the human smell of him with something of citrus and spice underneath, and the thrum of nervous intensity that vibrated through him. He was so warm, almost feverish. She reached down and slid her hand from his chest to his stomach. Definitely, working out a bit.

"Not yet," he whispered, guessing correctly where she was going. Bruce slid off of the bed and onto his knees beside it. He turned her hips so they were square with him, and he unfastened her waistband and slipped her slacks lower on her hips. He then buried his face in her crotch, pressing into her and pretending to chew her through her panties.

It was all she could do not to gab his head and thrust her hips into his face. "God, Banner, you are such a tease."

He laid his head on her thigh and grinned at her. "Let me take care of you then." He unzipped her pants, and she raised her hips so he could slip the clothing off. Natasha was wearing shear silk panties in shades of purple, lavender, and green like a watercolor painting. He noticed the black lace matched the bra. "Oh, these are too pretty to tear off you," he said, and slipped them carefully over her hips, off her thighs, and laid them with her slacks on the chair. He leaned back on his heels and took a moment to gaze at her entirely naked body for the first time. "I've always loved you for your tenacity and your compassion, your belief in me. Just being near you makes me unbelievably happy. You have a beautiful soul, Natasha, but right now I want to please your body."

"Please me then, Bruce," she said with anticipation.

He ran his hands along her thighs and gently spread them. He kissed one side and then the other, working toward the red-gold triangle of her pubic hair. Locating the sensitive spot high on her right inner thigh where the main artery was near the surface, he clamped his mouth down, biting and sucking hard to mark her with a bruise. She gasped at the pain and pleasure of it. Before she could grab his hair, he backed off to look at his handiwork. "I can do a better job than that," he said critically. This time he latched his mouth down on the opposite side and sucked a little harder and bit more firmly. He reached up and squeezed one of her breasts. Natasha wanted to come. She wanted to press his face into her crotch, but she gripped the bed covers and bit her lip waiting to see what he wanted to do next. She was a little concerned about how rough his beard might be, but she really wanted to let Bruce make his moves. God knows he'd probably been planning and fantasizing about this moment for a long time—she knew she had. He was clearly experienced, but at the same time shy and heartbreakingly sincere, much as she'd predicted, but he was still surprising her with what he was doing now. Bruises and love bites were about territory, and she found this incredibly sexy for reasons she could barely articulate.

He took a moment to inspect the second flowering bruise before motioning for her to scoot closer to the edge of the bed. He helped guide her legs over his shoulders. "I'm going to try and be careful with this beard, but you need to tell me if I'm scraping you too much or if it's the wrong kind of uncomfortable."

"I will," she said, pleased that he was being thoughtful. _Yea, props to Bruce!_

He began by gently manipulating the lips of her labia with his warm fingers. She was more than just damp. He spread the delicate folds back and inhaled her sweet musky essence deeply. "Not that I have tons of experience, but women's cunts are all so distinct and beautiful. Yours reminds me of an orchid or a flower in a Georgia O'Keefe painting." He adjusted so that his left arm reached around and over her right thigh. He held the folds back and exposed her clitoris. He then began to lick around it teasingly at first and then quite sloppily with his hot tongue. He finally began licking and then sucking her clitoris, licking and then sucking in rhythm. She couldn't help herself. Soon she was groaning with desire and wanting to buck her hips. Bruce chose this moment to ease in one finger and then two into her vagina. Rather than just probing her woodenly, he stroked her inner walls and responded to her reactions, finally reaching deep and high for a specific spot against her inner pelvic arch. She wrapper her thighs around him hard and grabbed his mane of curls just to hold onto him as she came. Her vaginal muscles contracted hard and rhythmically around his fingers. He stopped the licking and sucking and pulled back just enough to observe her orgasm. Her back had arched, and she let go of his hair. She spread her arms out wide on the bed and closed her eyes as the sensations rippled through her. For some reason her throat and chest pounded more than normal with the rush of returning blood. The warmth spread from her inner core out and into her limbs. This was euphoric! Oh, yes, no doubt about it. Bruce was even better than she thought he would be.

She was suddenly aware through her pleasurable haze that Bruce had pulled away. She immediately opened her eyes and willed her sated body to sit up and look at him. There was a look of surprise and puzzlement on his face as he sat there toppled back on the floor. _Please don't be green! Please don't be green!_ His expression reminded her at once of the Other Guy, but he had not Hulked out, at least not if she judged by his size or color. He held his hands out in front of him and stared at them, feeling the stickiness of her on his fingers. He inhaled deeply and then seemed finally to notice and focus on Natasha for the first time. His eyebrows rose with surprise and between one blink and the next his irises turned from brownish to bright green and his skin lost some of it's pinkness and took on a green mottling. _Oh, no!_ She expected the rapid swelling of muscles and the expansion of his slim frame into the Other Guy, but it didn't happen. All at once he recognized her and grinned, snorting out a breath through his nose. This was definitely the Other Guy. He looked at her curiously and reached out to stroke her foot with his left hand, running his thumb across her toenails. He looked back at his right hand and shook it while rubbing his fingers. The stickiness obviously perplexed him. She looked around and was incredibly relieved to spot a package of wet wipes on the nightstand within arm's reach. She took a deep breath, slid to the floor, and pulled a wipe out of the pack. "Here, Big Guy," she said and held out her hand for his. With little hesitation, he placed his right hand in hers. She cleaned his hand slowly and carefully as he attentively watched her. After she finished with the right hand, he inspected it and rubbed his thumb across his knuckles in a consummate Bruce gesture.

He then offered her his left hand and concentrated, trying to make his thoughts take on the shape of a word. "Please?" he asked hoarsely, looking completely uncertain about both the word choice and her response. _Wow, this was something new!_

Natasha smiled, "Of course I'll clean your hand." She took out another wipe and cleaned his left hand. The whole time with his right hand he kept running his thumb across his finger nails and knuckles. "There you go, Big Guy. How about your face?" He held perfectly still as she leaned close and used another wipe on his beard and face.

He looked relieved as he did the same thumb and knuckle gesture with each hand then slowly rubbed both hands together. She really wished she could have gotten this on video for Bruce. He looked thoughtful and smiled, "Thanks, Ta-shuh." The pitch and range of the voice were Bruce's, but it clearly wasn't him using his vocal chords or picking through his brain for the basic vocabulary.

"You're welcome. There's no mission today, but I wanted to say that I missed you." He chewed his lower lip and smiled at her again almost self-consciously. It was clear to her that even if he wasn't able to articulate words well, he was obviously understanding and thinking a great deal, and he was otherwise quite aware of what was presently happening. He certainly understood what she was saying, but that had been a fairly consistent achievement since their first battle together in New York. Then Natasha realized she wanted to know something and she might not get another opportunity if she didn't ask him now. "I have a question. Why did you fly away in the quinjet? Why did you leave me?"

He cocked his head and frowned slightly as if to say the reason was obvious: "Love."

"Fair enough," it was basically the same answer Bruce had given. She held her hands out for his, and he huffed out his breath and placed them in both of hers. "I want you to promise me you won't leave me like that again. I want to be with you two."

He looked at her very seriously; then, with his left thumb he traced a circle on his chest and made an "X" to cross it. It was nearly identical to the gesture Bruce and she both used with each other to say they were serious and meant something in earnest.

"Thank you," she said and gently squeezed his hands. He breathed in deeply and closed his eyes. There was nothing dramatic, just a difference in the way he exhaled that told her Bruce was back. His eyes were a little wild when he opened them, but they were also very brown, and the normal color was returning to his skin.

"What… the… what happened?"

"I think you let the Other Guy share some of your headspace, Love."


	9. Chapter 9

9: I Could Get Used to "Us"

Bruce kept on holding Natasha's hands between the two of them and rested his forehead on top for a minute before letting her hands go. "I'm guessing I didn't go full on Hulk because my jeans are still intact and there are still four walls and a roof here."

"Right," she said patting his knee. "What do you remember?"

"The last thing I remember is my fingers were still inside you, feeling you come. I just felt blissful. I was watching you and I thought, 'God, I could die happily right now,' and then I was gone. It was like I'd been knocked out of the way." He shook his head trying to clear it. "But now I remember, you cleaned my hands, and we, no, you two talked. It's all kind of jumbled. Wait! My God, you must have had a real conversation out loud."

"We did. Believe me, it was a real conversation. Even without many words he's very capable of getting his meaning across."

Bruce gripped his hands behind his head with his fingers woven together and slowly rocked forward and back to help him think. "We've had conversations in my head, but this is different. Four words and he picked them carefully. He knew they were there in my, our head, so he found them and he used them. My God. So he really communicated with you?"

Natasha smiled because Bruce was clearly excited, even enthusiastic about this Liminal experience rather than anxious or resentful, which was usually how he sounded when he discussed the Other Guy before. She breathed a big sigh of relief: they had both taken a step forward. "Yes, he did have a real back-and-forth conversation with me. He seemed disoriented at first, but he was fine once he recognized me. He didn't like how his fingers felt with, you know… so I cleaned him up."

"Sensory issues. That doesn't surprise me. I think he has problems with sensory overload, so the tactile discomfort fits right in with the rest of the picture. You know, I've been underestimating him. He understood what I was thinking, but he took it literally. That has to be it. He thought I was going to die or to try to kill myself again and stepped in. It fits with Tony's theory about him being a guardian personality, but I'm still not sure I buy that, not entirely anyway." Bruce ran his hands through his hair. "Wait, he called you 'Tasha.' I don't call you by that nickname. Do you think he heard someone else call you Tasha or maybe he even came up with it himself? That would be significant."

Natasha thought for a minute, "Clint and the rest of the Bartons call me 'Nat'. So do you sometimes. Tony is the only one I can remember calling me Tasha, but only a time or two." She wracked her brain, "Well, it is easier to pronounce and it has fewer syllables than my whole name." She took another look at Bruce. "By the way, are you okay?" She gripped his wrist to get a read on his pulse. "If your heart monitor was on, it would be tripping right now. You feel sort of hot, too." She touched his forehead, "Bozhe moy, you're burning up!"

"It's all right," he said, willing his heart rate to calm down. "When I don't transform, the energy that's called up has to go somewhere. My body has started converting it to heat. It will dissipate soon unless I put it to use some other way."

"Are you sure you don't want to step into the shower?"

"To be honest, I'd rather get back to what we were doing."

"Yah, we did get interrupted at an awkward moment, but it could have been much worse." Later they would analyze this incident down to the finest detail, but right now she didn't want to think too hard about what might have happened. At the moment, there were much more important things requiring her focused attention. She took a long evaluative look at the man in front of her and squeezed his hand. "Talk to me, Bruce, do you think you can handle taking this further?"

"Yes, I can," he said sincerely, and he looked her in the eyes. "More importantly," Bruce continued, "I think we're done with interruptions for a while. In fact, this is probably the best time to be intimate because it takes a certain ellipse of time and energy to turn the process around and come back once it's been triggered. Unless it's an emergency, he's usually happier not to stick around and instead have some quiet time to process things."

Bruce scratched at his beard, "Are you cold? We're just sitting here on the floor with you buck naked, and me… getting really turned on again just looking at you." He stood up and offered Natasha a hand. As he pulled her up, they both stepped closer than necessary and stayed in each other's space.

"Can you keep me warm?" she asked coyly.

"I don't think that will be a problem," Bruce said as he wrapped his warm arms around her. Natasha snuggled in close, enjoying the furry feel of his body hair and the excess heat he was radiating on her bare skin. She reached around his hips and grabbed his fine ass with both hands. She just knew he liked talking dirty, and she could get into that. "I want you so much inside me, Bruce. I want you to fuck me long and slow."

"I want to fuck you long and slow and hard, my beautiful Natasha. I want you to forget anyone else you've ever been with or desired. I want to be everything you'll ever need." She liked this possessiveness. He had always kept it bottled up like his anger, but it was high time he'd had a chance to express it. It amazed her just how much it turned her on. His hands rubbed up and down her back, sharing the heat, and settled on her backside. He began to grind his hips into her. The bulge of his engorging penis was obvious, even through his jeans. She seriously wanted to get his pants off, so she brought her hands back to his front and unfastened his belt. She had seen him naked before, but not under optimal circumstances. He backed her up to the bed and she sat down on the edge. He unzipped his fly and pulled down the broken-in denim. Her eyes followed the dark trail of hair down his stomach with the pleasant hint of abs beneath, past his navel, and down to the V beginning at his hips and meeting somewhere in his briefs. The line of musculature probably had a scientific name but she didn't know it. Adonis or Apollo's belt: she just knew she loved it and kissed both sides. He kicked off his shoes and peeled the narrow-legged jeans the rest of the way off. "Okay, before we go further, a couple of precautions. It's not sexy, but I have to scan."

"Just as long as you aren't sexting or posting a crotch shot… unless it's to me," she teased.

"Said the lovely woman sitting naked on the bed, the woman I'm going to ravish." He opened up an app on his Starkphone and scanned. "Hardly even a trace of background radiation. I think it's a go, Huston."

"You are one sexy dork, Banner."

"Don't worry, I'll be talking dirty to you again in a second." He pulled a condom and a small package from the drawer of the nightstand. He handed her the package, which reminded her of a box of travel-sized toothpaste, but held a small metal spray canister with an extension tube.

"Ah, the anti-radiation foam." She scanned through the directions and assembled the applicator. "I should use it now, right?"

"Yes, use it now please," he said. He was easing his navy blue briefs off and his impressive erection sprang free of its confines. What counted was how well a man used what he had, but she noted Bruce certainly was endowed with a lovely tool to work with. He unwrapped the condom, which was also apparently an off-the-market product. She immediately suspected Tony's involvement, but she'd confirm that later. Bruce fitted the center to the swollen purple head of his cock and unrolled it down over the veined shaft. She almost stopped him so that she could suck and tease him a bit, but she realized he probably didn't want to expose her to his semen. Instead, she took his left hand, which was now free, and began to suck on his thumb, so he could imagine what she would like to do. Bruce was breathing heavily now. "Oh, God, now you are torturing me, Natasha." He removed his thumb from her mouth, cupping his fingers around her jaw and tracing her lips with his wet thumb.

She could tell he was considering whether or not to say something. "What, Bruce?"

"My sweet Russe," he stroked her face with the back of his right hand, "I promise I'm not leaving you again. I can't give you everything I want, but we will work this all out."

"Yes, we will, Bruce. We're going to make this work." It was like they were both stepping over the edge together, but this time it was mutually consensual. No red to cross off, no tricks, no leveraging, and no sacrificing for a greater good: just the two of them.

He bent down and kissed her deeply, taking his time, but eager and passionate. They separated to get better centered on the bed.

Natasha was on her back and Bruce was propped on an elbow to her right side. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like we've waited a long time and I want us to enjoy this."

He smiled and laughed, "Let's hope it's not too tragically short. I've thought about doing this all sorts of ways."

"We don't have to do them all today."

"No, really?! I was hoping we'd be through the Karma Sutra by lunch."

"Pick one, Banner."

"Okay, long and slow you said."

"And hard, don't forget hard," she added with a smirk.

He stroked himself to firm up again then rose to straddle her body. He was careful not to crush her as he parted her legs and took a moment to manipulate her small mound and cleft and stroke her pubic hair, so gold-red and lovely. He slowly lowered his hips to meet her and she guided his cock down her cleft. "Wrap your legs around me," he said. She gasped as he penetrated her and filled her.

"God, you feel so good. Fuck me, Bruce, just fuck me," she moaned.

"I am going to fuck your beautiful brains out," he growled. "I'm going to start off long and slow and we'll go from there." True to his word, he set up a deliberately slow and teasing rhythm. "I've wanted you from the moment I saw you in that setup in Kolkata. I knew you were dangerous and that just made me want you more. I knew if I went with you, I'd really never be able to say no again, not for long." At that point he stopped thrusting into her and was very still. She touched his face, brushing aside some of the dark curls. He kissed her hand and then leaned down to kiss her on the mouth and started thrusting again a little faster. She surprised him by biting his lip, "Oh, naughty girl, you may have to pay for that." He slowed down again and leaned into her more, placing more or his weight on her, making sure that their bodies completely touched from crotch to chest. He rubbed his face against her neck, not quite bearding her, but she squirmed and giggled. He lay still again on top of her. He knew all too well she could throw him off as soon as she had leverage and felt like it, but it was fun to pretend he was completely in control, especially if that was what made her happy at the moment. "Have you had enough? Are you going to be good now?" He play gnawed and nibbled at her neck and ear, getting her to laugh again. _Ah, she's very ticklish in certain spots!_ This opened up all kinds of possibilities for him to consider later.

"If you fuck me hard, I'll be good," Natasha said once she caught her breath.

"Oh, so that's the deal. Let's try something a little different then." He rose up over her to get a different angle and moved her right leg higher so her knee was pressed to his chest. He pulled their hips close. "How's this?"

"Oh, yes, that's good and deep," she said, inhaling sharply.

He took her hands and their fingers intermeshed. He made it a point of pressing into her, "I don't know how much longer I'm going to last, but this will be good and hard." He withdrew several inches and plunged into her, biting his lower lip with concentration. She was so beautiful beneath him. He wanted to spend more time just kissing those full lips and feeling her curves and strong pale limbs. He pounded into her again and again, watching her react. He was trying to be careful, but still give them both what they wanted. She was close, so close, to coming again. "Touch your clit," he said between gritted teeth. Natasha worked her hand between them. He sped up and she came explosively fast. Her inner walls contracted so spasmodically hard he could feel how she gripped his shaft even through the condom. He gave one last good thrust and let go with a groan, "Oh, Natasha!"

Bruce was no monk, but it had been a long time since he'd thought about Betty or anyone else and acted on it. He was very good at carrying a torch, and it hadn't been just pillow talk when he'd admitted how much Natasha had figured into his decision to "come in" at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s request and stay for the Avengers. He had initially kicked himself for that because Fury had no doubt calculated she could exploit his supposed "weakness," but it hadn't stopped him from falling for her. Now, he fell onto the bed beside her.

"God, you're incredible, Doc."

Bruce snorted and laughed, "How long have you been holding that line in reserve?"

"Too long, way too long."

"Well, you are amazing and beautiful and delightfully fuckable, Ms. Romanoff."

He rolled onto his side to see her better. Natasha encircled him with her arms and he laid his head beside hers. She ran her fingers through his hair. This was probably as wild as he'd ever let it grow. The man was such a package of contradictions: life with him was not going to be predictable or boring.

"I could get used to _us_ ," she said.

"Me, too," said Bruce.

Natasha leaned over and saw a tear slide down Bruce's face, and she kissed it away.


	10. Chapter 10

10: Stay Safe, Come Home Soon

It had only taken a few minutes for them to load the bags and get on the plane. For a small jet it was actually quite roomy. The seats were beige leather and reminded Bruce of Barcaloungers with full swivels. That was good because he was going to have to down a few sedatives. They had become less and less effective over the years—not from taking them too often (he only flew if he had no choice), but because they barely phased his system any longer. Now, it was more the ritual of taking them than anything they did after about a half hour. As he thought about it, Bruce decided he didn't need them, shoved the prescription bottle back in his pocket, and pulled out the apple Natasha had put there instead. Tony was still talking on the phone, probably to Mrs. G. if the serious tone was any indication. Bruce pulled out his phone and went through the TechUWear tutorial as he ate his apple. He was glad that he did review the information because getting out of the clothes was more tricky than putting them on. Apparently, he should have put on the leggings first. It was good to know you could swim in it, but as he dug further, he decided the last thing he wanted to do was keep it on twenty-four/seven. It collected way too much data, and he didn't want any more information available for the hacking. He suspected Natasha's hunch was probably going to be proven right if Tony's mercurial attention came back to the clothing. He had an extra pair of Under Armour in his bag and he was tempted to go change, but he just knew the tech app would rat him out.

Tony finally finished up with the call and took his seat across from Bruce and strapped himself in. "Mal says to tell you to relax. She's meeting us at Lunkin Field and taking us straight to see a family member who just happens to be a urologist. You don't have to put in an appearance at the conference till the opening festivities at 6:00pm, so there's plenty of time."

"Thank you," said Bruce. "It'll be nice not to have to worry about that. How did Mel sound?"

"As on top of things as any ringmaster can be. I've decided that she must have cousins, friends, or people who owe her a favor in every major city and port of call, including the International Space Station."

That got Bruce to smile. "You know she knows Elon Musk, right?"

"I know Elon Musk," said Tony.

"Yah, but he calls her—not the other way around."

Tony stuck his tongue out.

"I'm just giving you shit. Any protesters yet?"

"No, not in any numbers, but there are threats about the loonies from the church out in Kansas making the trip. Luckily, they tend to cancel pretty frequently, and the weather between Cincinnati and central Kansas is acting up."

"Yea, so we're literally heading into a storm."

"Or two or three storms, but it is late February in the middle of the country, so what's new about that?"

"Not a thing," said Bruce.

"Did you take your sedative yet?"

"No, I don't think I'm going to either. The most it would do is tip me into a nap."

"Well, take a nap then. God knows she had you up early and kept you busy this morning." Bruce glared at Tony; he knew this was off limits. "Hey, I'm just saying that I know you two well enough to, you know, recognize the 'glow'. You both look happy. There is nothing wrong with that. You're two healthy adults. I'm not reading anymore into it than that."

"Please don't."

"So go ahead and take a nap."

"Maybe after we take off." Bruce double-checked the seatbelt and then slumped a bit, looking out the window as the plane jolted slightly at the breaks' release as the aircraft started its taxi into position before takeoff.

Tony was able to stay quiet for forty-eight seconds: almost a new record by Bruce's calculations.

"Okay, so what are you going to name this kid? How about Anthony for a boy or Antonia for a girl?"

"You are not helping me take a nap."

"Seriously, aren't you a bit excited by the possibility?"

"Look, above all, I'm worried about Natasha, but yes, a part of me is very selfishly 'excited by the possibility'. To be honest, yes, a big part of me desperately wants this impossibility to be true, but there are so many things, which could go wrong that I am _scared shitless_." Bruce looked down and realized his hands were digging into the armrests and he was straining forward in his seat.

"Okay then, sorry," said Tony, "I understand. I should have thought that through. Let's walk it back. We don't even have all the facts yet. Right now all we've got is puking and she's a little late on the period. Pepper and Natasha are at the doctor's office. They'll find out what she says, we'll have you checked out in Cincinnati, and we'll all go from there. No need to drive yourself crazy worrying about it."

Bruce closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Definitely, no napping now. "It's okay. I'm really more worried about the other unknown possibilities than the remote chance of a pregnancy right now." What he didn't say out loud was that he still on occasion thought obsessively about the potential for gamma radiation exposure to anyone near him. Despite dozens—no, it was now hundreds of clean scans—he still had nightmares where everyone he knew was radiation poisoned or had been diagnosed with cancer. He knew this wasn't rational, but it was one of those depressing scenarios that were easily dredged up when it came to not knowing what was wrong. There was also that insidiously self-destructive voice that whispered, "You don't deserve anything good; in fact, you're why everything you touch goes wrong." _No,_ he answered himself _, you're just full of crap and not the center of the universe._

The jet was in position and soon they were accelerating down the runway, quickly building up speed for the take off. As a kid, Bruce would have gone ape over this. Someone would have had to peel him off the window. By the time he was in elementary school, all he would have thought about were the laws of physics that kept the plane in the air. Now, as an adult after the accident, he thought about how vulnerable this tin can was and how everyone on this jet could potentially die if he lost control. Bruce pulled out his headphones and selected a favorite Maria Callas mix. At the moment, Tony seemed to be willing to give him some space, so Bruce closed his eyes and tried to "think happy thoughts" as the plane lifted into the air.

However, it wasn't long until he was thinking of the last time he'd "piloted" a plane, if one could call it that, which was of course the Avengers' quinjet he and the Other Guy had commandeered to leave Sokovia. His memory still had some gaps, but leaving had been a mutual decision between Bruce and the Other Guy. In fact, it had been one of the first things both wanted badly enough to draw them together completely into that Liminal headspace they could share. What neither of them had counted on was the difficulty they'd have pulling out of it. Perhaps because he thought Bruce might have wavered, the Other Guy hung in there doggedly for several hours after switching off communication with Natasha. When it came time to let go, it was difficult for Bruce to trigger the change from the inside because the Big Guy was so tired and unavailable that there wasn't enough—for lack of a better word—"momentum" to trigger the transformation. It reminded Bruce of when he had trouble waking his college roommate after the guy had borrowed his car to go out drinking on a Friday night and not returned the keys. Eventually, Bruce got frustrated enough to roust the Hulk into consciousness long enough for him to slide control back to Bruce.

Of course then came the fun part, figuring out where he was and where he wanted to go. If he kept himself busy, he wouldn't have to think about what he and the Other Guy had done in Johannesburg (or why his mouth tasted like metal and motor oil, what the… ?) or deal with their feelings about Natasha. They were currently over the North Atlantic and headed for Canadian airspace. For Bruce this wasn't a bad option. Although the border itself had tightened up, he had lived there before and wouldn't have a problem blending in. It would make a good first stop. He also still had friends and contacts there who might help him, but the immediate problems were the usual: food, shelter, and clothing.

Bruce checked his locker. He had his standard emergency duffle with a change of clothing, footwear, spare eyeglasses, and the usual basic necessities after a Code Green: protein bars, energy drinks, lots of dried fruit, etc. What surprised Bruce was the unmarked envelop with the passports (two of his former aliases that had not been blown) and the array of cash in different currencies. At the bottom was a note on an index card that simply said, "Stay safe. Come home soon." He didn't recognize the handwriting. It wasn't Natasha's and it wasn't Tony's scrawl. Bruce went through the list of possibilities in his head and narrowed it down to two, but then added a third person and considered a fourth. The passports were what moved Maria, Pepper, and Clint to the top of the list. It's not that Steve couldn't have done this, but he would have tried to talk Bruce out of leaving first. After puzzling over the mystery a while longer, he let it drop because he didn't want to guess wrong, and besides, he might have overlooked someone. No matter who had done this, he was both touched by the kindness and chagrinned someone knew him so well she or he had anticipated his supposedly spontaneous move before he had made it.

Once he took a little time to clean up, change, and eat (the busier he stayed, the less he had to think about what he'd done), Bruce checked the guidance computer and looked for a suitable place to land. Late April on the Canadian coast wasn't exactly balmy. Fuel wasn't an issue yet, but he didn't want to push it. He and Tony had been working on integrated solar panels and a kinetic energy recovery system, but they had yet to test them on a long haul mission. Now might be the right time to put them on line. Bruce's hand flitted across the familiar section of the display as he brought the twin systems online. When the sun rose, the solar would fully power up, but KERS was already edging through the single digits. Now, if the new storage elements did their job, the system would keep the craft aloft almost indefinitely.

Bruce plugged in the coordinates for an inland location he remembered, which fit in that category of big enough to have the amenities with enough population for him to blend into it, yet small enough to be under the radar and out of the way. He planned to set the quinjet down well outside of the community, wait for daylight, and walk into town. He would take what he needed with him and leave the plane. Years ago, he would have landed in a more remote location and just walked into the forest and kept going. "You're getting soft, Banner," he told himself.

The quinjet had yet to started its descent and the ETA was about 30 minutes out when Bruce noticed the jet was correcting for turbulence that hadn't been there a moment before. Damn, things were never easy. He knew he wasn't alone in the skies, but he had no idea who it was. He quickly went through a list of options. They would soon be over land, so jumping was a possibility. There were parachutes, so he could do it as himself or he could just open up the rear door, jump, and let nature take its course. Neither of these options was particularly appealing for a variety of reasons. He took a gamble and decided to sit tight. His unknown neighbors didn't know he'd spotted them, so surprise was in his favor. He reasoned that they might make contact when he got over land, so it made sense to wait them out. Bruce checked his bag and pulled a coat out of a storage locker. He had on a spare pair of his uniform pants, so he tucked the envelope with the passports and currency into the inner pocket at the small of his back. It occurred to Bruce that he should have checked Natasha's and Steve's lockers for a spare firearm, but he quickly rejected that. If these folks were hostile, they weren't bringing just handguns to a Hulk fight. He started ticking off the possibilities. There wasn't much left of Hydra, but he kept them on the list because they probably had some cloaking tech. Aim or the Five Rings were possible, but not likely. That left government entities like General Ross or Talbot, but they probably didn't have the resources, especially for this efficient of an intercept. Finally, his primary suspect, he reasoned, was a resurrected S.H.I.E.L.D. They had the Helicarrier, Number 64—the very one the Other Guy helped gut prior to the Battle of New York—in Sokovia as a true deus ex machina, so they certainly had the opportunity to spot him visually when he left. The more he thought about it, he'd be surprised if it wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D. They probably had the same or similar stealth and cloaking tech, so he doubted he could outrun them and he certainly couldn't out maneuver them. He pulled up the display for the countdown till land—two minutes—and wondered if they were just going to follow him in or make contact. Mostly out of curiosity, Bruce enabled communications to see if they would hail him.

The moment they were over land, the display came to life and Bruce knew he was seeing a ghost. "Dr. Banner, this is Phil Coulson, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. We need to talk. Dr. Banner, do you copy?

"Answer me this first: Did Stark get your trading cards signed?" asked Bruce.

"He better not have! Those were vintage Captain America cards. That would have ruined them!"

Okay, that was at least in character. "To paraphrase Twain, rumors of your death…"

"…Have been exaggerated, greatly exaggerated. I know." Coulson's sigh was quite audible.

Bruce went ahead and flicked the screen control panel so the visual worked both ways. "So, what do we need to talk about, _Director_ Coulson?" Bruce hadn't missed the title upgrade. Interesting, Fury had been speaking the truth when he said he was no longer the director, but wow, Bruce certainly hadn't considered this as a possibility.

"It's not something we should be discussing over the air even on a secure channel. We need to be face to face. Are you okay with us following you in?"

"Sure, I'm good with that. ETA is in ten minutes north of Bear Lake. Do you need the coordinates?"

"No, we'll just play wingman and follow you in. Over and out."

Bruce was already wondering if he should be kicking himself. He had barely got to talk with Phil Coulson while on the Helicarrier, but somehow his gut was saying this was the right guy. Because Bruce felt some responsibility for the whole fiasco that led up to Coulson's death, he was hoping this resurrection was genuine. He hadn't included Asguardians or aliens on his list of possible pursuers, but he was also hoping the Big Guy could help him out with determining that once they got up close. The Other Guy rather enjoyed thinking about what he'd done to Loki once he caught up with him. _Someone_ _had to do some avenging, after all_. Thus, Bruce was willing to take the chance, but he wouldn't know until he got close enough to be sure.

Despite having only a few hours in proximity on the Helicarrier, Bruce felt like he had a good sense of who Coulson was from what Natasha and Clint had told him over the years since. Of course, Bruce had been at the funeral, tagging along with Tony and Pepper, who also knew Phil from interactions and emergencies past. Bruce remembered he had felt even more awkward than usual in the dark pinstripe suit and wingtip shoes he'd borrowed from Tony. He'd seen the dark-haired young woman Pepper explained was Coulson's girlfriend who'd recently moved out to Oregon. She was a professional cellist. They might have been affianced. Yes, that would make sense because she was taking it pretty hard. Bruce couldn't remember anymore first-hand details.

The more he thought about it, a lot of other people didn't know Coulson was still alive, and they had cared a great deal about him. Natasha and Clint had their suspicions; she'd told him as much when she'd talked about boxing up his locker. Wow, so that meant, assuming this was Phil Coulson, Bruce might be the only Avenger to know. Well, former Avenger anyway. He didn't want to ponder that right now. Instead, he distracted himself by thinking about cartoons and the periodic table as the quinjet descended over the rugged terrain.

Although he had trained with Natasha and Tony so he could manually fly and land the jet, Bruce let the onboard Friday program play pilot and bring the plane in once he had switched off the stealth mode. There was a brief moment when he wondered if some unknown foe in the air or on the ground was going to open fire, but the jet scanned the ground, descended, and set down atop a modest bluff just to the north of the lakeshore. In less than a minute, another quinjet with an updated S.H.I.E.L.D. paint scheme just visible in the landing lights descended from the dark sky and set down about 75 yards away. It was roughly 2:00am local time.

The display came to life again. "Dr. Banner, my place or yours?" Coulson asked.

"I need to stretch my legs. Let's meet in the middle."

"Sounds good." It was amazing how casual and unruffled Coulson sounded when he had to be at least a little nervous dealing with him. Well, that was kind of the agent's calling card—quietly confident and professional, even when completely outclassed by demigods and monsters. Bruce hoped there wasn't anymore to it. If he had nefarious intent, only a fool wouldn't wait for more backup.

Bruce keyed in his thumbprint as the identifier for accessing the jet and idled the system. He touched Tony's "Jarvis Is My Copilot" bumper sticker on the dash for good luck, pulled on the coat, slung his bag over his shoulder, and opened the rear hatch. He reminded himself that he could always run, and for once the rumbling presence of the Other Guy seemed to reassure Bruce that his back was covered. It was a new feeling because they were completely in this together. Normally, he would have been hoping the Big Guy might nap through the first encounter, but, truth be told, Bruce was okay with this closer contact with the Other Guy because he didn't want to ride the angry edge right now. He was getting tired of the internal fight and was ready to try something different. If the Big Guy was willing to offer his support, despite the years of bad feelings and mistrust between them, Bruce found himself wanting to meet him halfway.

After hours spent in the aircraft, the smells of the night on the bluff were almost overwhelming: dry grass, disturbed earth, the conifers, the lake, and the tang of the not-so-distant Atlantic. There was also the metallic smell and low-level hum of the cloaked jet that was keeping watch overhead as well. Bruce didn't need to see it because he could use his (and the Big Guy's) other senses. The Other Guy immediately was curious about the new sensory input, but he stayed focused and alert. Bruce shut the hatch and began walking through the dry knee-high grass toward the other grounded jet. When its hatch opened, Bruce recognized Coulson's lean silhouette as he pulled on a dark coat. He wasn't alone, but all Bruce could tell from this distance was that there was a dark-haired woman he didn't immediately recognize getting up from the pilot's seat. Coulson walked down the ramp and toward Bruce.

Bruce waited outside the semicircle of light spilling from the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet's open rear hatch doors. As the taller man approached, Bruce took several deep breaths and waited for a reaction from the Other Guy. _Familiar, definitely familiar and from the Helicarrier_ was the verdict. Considering how little time Bruce had been around the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, that was as good of a confirmation as he could hope the Big Guy would give since the Hulk and Coulson hadn't met face to face. Coulson held out his hand, "Dr. Banner, thank you for agreeing to talk with me. I know the timing is, well, a bit awkward."

Bruce snorted, "Barton always said you had—or I guess, you still _have_ a gift for understatement." He took his hand out of his pocket and shook Coulson's offered hand. "It must be pretty important for you and your buddies to track me down." Bruce shot a glance into the night sky for emphasis.

"We have one plane keeping watch because we weren't the only ones following you. There's another one of ours leading the bogie off course toward the South Pacific, but there could be more."

"Thanks," said Bruce. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"Wow, you don't want to see my scar or a photo ID first?" Coulson joked.

"I'm sure it's a very impressive scar, but my instincts say you're genuine. Also, not to be rude, but you know the consequences of pissing me off better than most people."

Coulson nodded and smirked sheepishly.

"I'm also very curious why you're blowing your cover to me after this long. It can't be to hit me up with a repair bill for the Helicarrier."

"No," said Coulson, "it's not, but I will say those repairs kept her out of Hydra's hands. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to loan her to Furry yesterday. So, here's a belated thanks, Dr. Banner. Sometimes we all have fortuitous accidents." Bruce raised a skeptical eyebrow and looked at the director. He certainly hadn't viewed the incident that way. Was he supposed to believe that this was the silver lining? Coulson smiled back inscrutably before taking a deep breath and continuing, "I'm actually the messenger for someone else, Dr. Banner, and also we can offer you support and assistance if you need it."

"I'm listening."

"You may want to sit down first. Might I suggest we go inside if you're okay with that?"

"I'm okay with it, but I don't think your pilot is," Bruce had noted that the female agent hadn't moved since he'd approached the jet and come into the light. Her hands had remained relaxed and at her sides, but her eyes hadn't left him for a second. She was Asian and carried herself confidently and with a sense of suppressed aggression like a warrior ready to spring into action. Now that he was close enough to get a full look, she was also naggingly familiar. Bruce could feel the Other Guy stirring with interest, so he took a couple of deep, slow breaths. He was certain Natasha and Clint would know her, yet he hadn't met her before unless it was too brief of an encounter to register. The Big Guy didn't know her either, but he recognized a fellow predator. Relying on the Big Guy, Bruce stood his ground and stared back.

Luckily, Coulson picked up on the tension. "Agent May, why don't you walk the perimeter."

"No problem," she said in a tight low voice. She zipped up her jacket and was quickly gone into the darkness.

Bruce finally exhaled. Yes, this was Malinda May, one of Natasha's S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues and a friend. He had seen at least one group snapshot with her in it on Natasha's shelves. He'd just never met her. Bruce looked over at Coulson, "Did I do something to offend her?"

"It's not you; we're sort of in the middle of reorganizing at the top, and she's not happy with some of my decisions. Also, I think it may be your alter ego. She was exposed to an Asguardian artifact and sometimes that resonates in odd ways. She'll have it under control when she gets back." Coulson took one last concerned look into the darkness and climbed the ramp. He motioned Bruce in and shut the hatch behind them. "Please don't Hulk out, Dr. Banner. May will kill me." Knowing something of her reputation, Bruce thought he might not be kidding.

Coulson offered him a seat, and Bruce sighed, set down his duffle, and unfastened his coat before settling into the nearest jump seat, "I don't intend to turn green, but that might depend upon what you have to tell me."

Coulson unzipped his coat and sat down next to Bruce. "Have you heard of Dr. Stephen Strange?"

"The name sounds a little familiar, but no, I don't think so."

"Both you and he were on Hydra's most dangerous list of people they wanted eliminated through Project Insight. This is going to sound way out there, but he is Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, which is basically a guardian of this part of the universe on the mystic level. I know, it sounds crazy."

Bruce had actually heard of and seen crazier. "Maybe, but I don't have to tell you, Asguardian science looks a lot like magic to us, which makes Mysticism seem not so farfetched. I'm sorry, go ahead."

Coulson smiled and continued, "Strange contacted us a few days ago. Apparently, the events unfolding in Sokovia and New York have had some unforeseen consequences on more than one level of reality. They were enough to get his attention, and he asked for our help to do something about setting it right."

"Are you talking about my and Tony's actions?"

"Not necessarily what you've done, but the trajectory it's set you on."

Bruce wasn't sure what to make of that.

"What Strange wanted me to do is deliver this to you." Coulson reached inside his jacket to his breast pocket and pulled out a dark velvet bag with an object inside and handed it to Bruce.

The first thing he noticed was the object was unusually heavy for its small size. "Do you want me to take this out?"

"Yes, but I should tell you it's a 'Lesser Orb of Seeing,' a way of communicating directly with Strange. He should be able to answer your questions."

Bruce carefully held the object and pealed back the covering, so he could reveal the orb without directly touching it. It was a round crystal ball about the size of large walnut, completely clear and unusually heavy.

"You have to touch it with your hand for it to work. It's pretty trippy, so you might want to sit back."

Bruce pressed his lips together and looked at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director with a sideways glance, "Are you sure you want me to do this here in your plane?"

"This is probably as safe of a place as you're going to find."

"I don't mean for me. I mean for you."

Coulson gave Bruce an earnest and lopsided smile, "My instincts say to trust you, Dr. Banner."

"Okay, if you say so, Director," Bruce took several deep, calming breaths to center himself. The Other Guy seemed to be waiting quietly. Bruce rolled the orb into his right palm and held it. It was no longer heavy, but oddly warm and glowing with a pleasant orange-gold light deep in its center. Bruce wrapped his fingers around it and closed his eyes. That's when he heard the humming.


	11. Chapter 11

11: Two Flowers, One Root

Bruce opened his eyes and he wasn't on the S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjet. He was sitting on the ground on a grassy plain, but the grass was red and the stars above weren't the normal constellations one could see from Earth. The brilliant multiple moons illuminating the landscape bright as daytime and their astonishing closeness were another giveaway. There was a low almost musical humming that was very familiar, but Bruce couldn't tell what the source of it was because it simply seemed to be everywhere. He felt immensely at peace here. His normally racing thoughts seemed to have slowed down and matched the quieter rhythm of the place. Then he realized he wasn't alone. In fact, he was sitting back to back with someone. Bruce looked inward and knew who it was. He turned slowly and was surprised to find instead a small child curled up and apparently sleeping on the grass. Bruce felt drawn to him. The child stirred and whimpered as if he were having a bad dream. Bruce reached out and brushed his dark curly hair away from his face. He might have been four or five years old. The child latched onto Bruce's hand and pulled it to his chest. Bruce eased his other arm under the boy and lifted his small frame into his own lap and held him close. It just seemed right. The whimpering stopped and the tension eased out of his slight body. The hum became a multi-octave chord, and it resonated through both of them. Bruce bent over him, kissed his forehead and rested his cheek in the dark nest of curls atop the child's head. The chord resolved itself and faded into the background. Bruce was overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings. Who was this child? Why did he instantly bond so completely with him? Bruce didn't want this moment to end; he wanted it to go on and on.

"It can go on," said a deep and sonorous voice behind him. "You've made the decision now, and your heart has changed, Dr. Banner, which makes my job a lot easier."

"You must be Dr. Strange," said Bruce, not moving and not really caring that tears were slipping out of the corners of his eyes. Soon he was sobbing without knowing quite why. A hand offered him a handkerchief and Bruce took it gratefully and used it. "Thank you," he said and felt like he was coming back to himself. The child in his lap stirred and his eyes sprang open. Bruce wasn't surprised they were a deep and grassy green, like his mother's had been. The two smiled at each other and the child scrambled out of his lap like a bird taking flight. His two small hands pulled Bruce's face close and the boy planted a wet kiss on his forehead. One hand lingered for a moment as he examined Bruce's own graying curls, and then he laughed before skipping off into the grass.

"Is it safe for him here? He can't hurt anything, can he?" Bruce asked.

"Yes, he'll be fine while we talk." They both watched the boy for a minute. He seemed quite happy to run and entertain himself. He was beautiful as most young children are, but there was something not quite normal about him. Bruce finally looked up and turned his full attention on the tall, slim man standing beside him for the first time. Bruce started to stand up, but Strange stopped him and instead sat down gracefully beside him on the ruby-colored grass. Bruce wasn't sure what he'd expected a Sorcerer Supreme to be like, but the piercing blue eyes and slightly mischievous smile were a little surprising, as were the heavy gold medallion and the blue silk pajamas—at least that's what Bruce thought they were. He guessed a sorcerer could wear whatever he or she wanted. His hair was grayer than Bruce's at the temples, but his face was smooth and hard to pin an age on. His hands and beard were neat and well-groomed in a professional sort of way.

"Yes, to answer your earlier question, I am Stephen Strange. Please call me Stephen. May I call you Bruce?" Bruce nodded and shook the hand Strange offered him. "I'm glad you managed that on your own. I knew you were close, so I didn't want to muck it up by interfering."

"What just happened?"

"You forgave yourself, Bruce, the part of you that's taken the blame and the rage almost all of your life. It's the part that's been crippled and stunted by your circumstances. You don't have a clean slate, but things are going to be different. Even if you don't remember this later, you've started down a better path with him," Strange gestured toward the boy.

Bruce tried to take this in, "I know that's the part of me that's the Hulk out there picking flowers, so why is he a child here?"

"You came here via an Orb of Seeing. It functions as more than just a communication device, like one of the Palantir or Seeing Stones from Tolkien. (Yes, I know you've read his works and loved them dearly, so don't deny it, man of science _and_ imagination.) This artifact can strip off the layers we've constructed to reveal our true selves. Or, if someone had been under the influence of a glamour or illusion spell, for example, I would see the true person underneath as well."

The more Bruce considered this concept, the more his thoughts started to spin and spiral. He wanted to put his head between his knees and rock himself back and forth, but he also wanted to go pick flowers with the Big Guy and get to know him. "Why so young?" Bruce asked.

"There are different theories from subsumed twins to fractured or multiple personalities, but most would agree it starts with an initial trauma. When did you experience the incident that split him off from you? It certainly wasn't 'the accident'. He's been with you much longer than that."

Bruce stared at his hands, "One of my earliest memories is of my father hitting me and my mother picking me up to comfort me." He swallowed. "I used to imagine being someone who was able to protect me. I was maybe three or four."

"Do you remember any other incidents with your father."

"Some, but I've blocked many of them. I can't remember anything completely except the anger."

"So that was most likely when the split occurred."

"Shouldn't he still be older, at least my age?"

"How often do you 'let him out'? How often is he in control of your mind and body?"

Bruce added it up. "Hours… days if it's all tallied up. Sometimes he's there in the background, but I'm not sure if that actually counts."

"Then he really only has a total of four or five years actual experience because—I'm not judging you, Bruce—he's been closeted away. I would theorize that's why he presents as so young and, frankly, socially and developmentally delayed. He's not going to be your equal in age and maturity because he lacks actual experience in the world. He shares many things with you because of your common origin and some shared experiences, but other traits he has to a much greater extreme."

Perhaps sensing they were talking about him, the boy approached almost shyly and held out a hand full of alien flora, which he laid on the ground in front of Bruce and Strange. "Thank you," said the sorcerer, and selected one of the flowers the child had pulled up by the roots from out of the pile.

The boy then launched himself into Bruce's arms where he hugged him around the neck with the intensity of one so young. Bruce held him to his chest. He could feel his little heart beating wildly like a bird's. "I love you, Big Guy," Bruce whispered past the lump in his throat. The child seemed so fragile and ethereal, the Hulk's complete opposite. Bruce could think of nothing but protecting and nurturing him. Had he been this wrong about who the Hulk was for this long—essentially from the beginning?

"Love Puny Bruce," the boy whispered in Bruce's ear. He then pulled free and trotted away, spinning in circles as he went. Bruce pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged his legs. He stayed like this for a few minutes, but the sorcerer's cool hand on his shoulder brought his thoughts back to the present.

"I promise, it's going to continue to get better for you both." Strange held up the flower. "See how it starts from one bulb and splits into two flowers. Remember that. You come from the same roots. You are the same plant. You've experienced the same trauma. You need to set aside your fears and work together for both of you to function and to be happy, if not whole."

Bruce nodded, "I think I understand that now. Somehow I made him to protect me when I was small, and he's been doing that and more ever since."

"Yes, and the accident allowed him to manifest and express the rage and unhappiness you've both felt."

"We're a damaged vessel."

"But you can and will mend."

"You keep speaking like you already know me. Like we're already friends."

"Because we are. All three of us will be. In this place I experience multiple timelines. That's how I knew something was wrong, that you'd gone off the rails, so to speak.

Bruce was now wishing Strange hadn't explained the time dissonance because he was starting to feel it more and more powerfully. "Okay, I'm getting a double feeling of déjè vu because I can't tell if we've had this discussion before or if it's one we are going to have."

"Yes, you're sensing the chronological multiplicities of the place. Take my hand."

Bruce grabbed a little too anxiously onto Strange's hand and immediately felt the dissonances resolve and synchronize again. He had to take a moment to bring his breathing and heart rate back to normal. "Thanks, that's better," he finally said.

"Sorry, Bruce, sometimes I forget certain sensitivities of yours set you up for problems with this place."

"I'm sort of used to my own thoughts becoming a jumble. One moment it feels like we just crossed over into a bizarre Hogwarts/time turner fantasy, but," Bruce looked around and gestured at the landscape, "it's certainly not a train platform, and you don't remind me that much of Dumbledore either."

"Well, for one thing I'm alive," Strange said with a smile. "But, if you put on your glasses, maybe you'd remind me a bit of Harry." He glanced over at the boy, "Please keep in mind, that's not Voldemorte over there. He's a piece of you."

Bruce hugged his knees again, "Well, I think I might be a horcrux."

"You're no horcrux, Bruce, and neither is Hulk."

"But my father was practically Voldemorte, and I carry the potential for some of that evil with me as does the Hulk."

"You're ceding too much power to your father's memory. He didn't make you a horcrux, Bruce. You have agency. You two can choose your own path. Search your heart. Now that you see Hulk for what he really is, how do you feel about him?"

Bruce took a deep breath, "I want to love and protect him right now in this form, but is it going to stay that way when he's large and green and angry? He's killed people, for God's sake. That means I've killed people."

"How you react to him is completely up to you, but you need to consider the circumstances surrounding your actions. You take on the complete weight of responsibility, even when it's not all yours to bear. This exquisitely overdeveloped sense of guilt keeps you from recognizing the real issues. If you can forgive and love that child, you can find yourself worthy of love and forgiveness. Yes, take responsibility, but make it part of reconciliation and healing, not a cycle of self-torture and denial. Instead of limiting the pain and damage to just yourself, you're now to the point of taking others down with you, and that will soon have much larger consequences."

Bruce watched the child who was now hopping and leaping from tussock to vermillion tussock of grass. They had connected so intensely and completely in this peculiar moment after nearly a decade of mistrust. Bruce could feel it—he really had forgiven the Big Guy and by extension at least part of himself. Would they both take a memory of this with them to build on or would it be back to antagonism and guilty self-loathing? Deep down he knew forgiving the child and even the Hulk was the easy part; forgiving himself required undoing patterns etched bone deep like the radiation that now resided there in the marrow. Bruce covered his eyes with his hands. _It's not you I don't trust._ _I don't trust me_.

"As much as I hate pulling you away from your thoughts," said Strange after a long period of silence, "I'm afraid we need to talk about matters even bigger than you and Hulk."

"I'm listening," said Bruce, adjusting his legs back to a cross-legged posture.

"I'm not sure how much Phil told you, but one of my responsibilities as Sorcerer Supreme is to observe matters on both the spiritual or astral plain as well as the physical one. Several days ago while I was meditating, I sensed a release of energies that crossed multiple realities, including Asgard and our own plane of existence. I instantly recognized an imbalance between order and chaos that I've since learned coincided with the Avengers' attack on Strucker's base in Sokovia. I had an uneasy feeling but hoped it was simply an unanticipated blip on the celestial radar. Days later I again felt the same release of chaotic forces, but this time the elements of order didn't counter them completely and balance out the results. I've been searching for the source of the original energy release and doing my best to correct the effects ever since. I haven't found the original energy source yet, but I'm sure you can guess who used the Chaos Magic.

"That would have to be Wanda Maximov," Bruce sighed. He knew all too well the kind of power she could wield and how much she could mess with a person's head. "She's young," he said. "She's not had her powers that long, and I doubt she's had any training. Despite being a novice, she's still very powerful."

"That's precisely what I've suspected, and she's next on my let's-have-a-chat list."

Bruce had every reason to still be mad at her. She had yet to even say she was sorry for what she'd done, but he now wanted to move past assigning the blame. "Please try and remember she's very young and Ultron manipulated her," added Bruce.

"Interesting," said Strange. "As justifiably furious as you were with her actions not 24 hours ago, you're already cutting her more slack than you ever give yourself."

"I'm quirky that way," Bruce deflected.

"Ah, remember your Milton. The only unforgivable sin is thinking that you are beyond forgiveness."

Bruce sighed and turned to fully face the sorcerer, "Is this the part where you lecture me about hubris and creating artificial intelligence?"

"Actually, no, I'm hoping _you_ , at least, have learned that lesson on your own. (It's Stark, about whom I'm not so certain.) No, it's about the consequences of you leaving your friends and the people who love you."

Bruce was a little surprised by that because he felt he had done the right thing by leaving to protect Natasha and also the rest of his friends and the people around him from what the Hulk could do. He felt staying was intolerably reckless and courting another disaster like Johannesburg. The only responsible thing to do was to remove himself from society, at least until he could figure out how to control himself.

Anticipating his thoughts, Strange continued, "I know you felt like you had no other choice but to leave to protect everyone. I can't imagine a more noble sentiment, but please contemplate what your presence has meant for other people. Consider Mr. Stark. If you hadn't been working with him on the Ultron project, the consequences would have been far worse. There would also not have been a Vision to help counter Ultron if you hadn't been there. In fact, that one act has made you responsible for more positive things than you can imagine. If this isn't getting through, we could watch _It's a Wonderful Life_ a few times."

Bruce still looked quite skeptical, "You're saying I should go back because Tony needs me?"

"I'm saying that without you there to help balance him out, your friend's future is bleak, and the rest of the world will need Tony Stark and you Bruce Banner to face what's coming."

 _Where can I go that I'm not a threat?_ Bruce covered his face with his hands before running them down to his jawline. "What are you asking me to do?"

"I'm asking you to take some time to start solving your internal problems (today has been a good start), to ask for help with them, and then to go back and be the man you're supposed to be. I've waited till now to mention Ms. Romanoff because we both know she's tough and resilient. You've emotionally eviscerated her, but she will throw herself into her work once again and on the surface she'll be okay. Maybe she'll even find someone who loves her half as much as you do someday. But what you're doing, Bruce, is killing the future possibilities you should have had together." To make his point, Strange looked out across the sea of grass blades red as blood at the child who was now frolicking and throwing handfuls of grass and flowers into the air.

Bruce swallowed hard, "That _isn't_ possible, Stephen."

"I think you know _it is_." Strange let that idea soak in for a moment. "You should be dead, Bruce. Your body took in more radiation than some suns can generate in that same instant. You didn't die. Your body embraced that radiation and adapted. In fact, it hasn't quit adapting either. You and I both know that on a genetic level you're no longer strictly human. That doesn't mean you've lost your humanity; it just means you're capable of greater things. More than just our little corner of the universe requires you to do greater things. But first, you have to get your shit together, Bruce."

At this, Bruce almost laughed with bitterness, "Who do I get to help me with him? It's not like there are a lot of psychologists used to working with large and dangerous clients on his scale. He is a real danger to anyone who works with him or me."

"The question is, who works with children like him? I think that's something Phil and his people can help you find."

As they were both watching, the tiring child went down in a heap and wailed. Bruce was already up on his feet and hustled over to see what was wrong. He quickly knelt and picked him up out of the grass and began checking his limbs. "Are you hurt?" The boy stopped his keening and held out his hands for Bruce to check them. It was hard to tell the red grass stains apart from any real damage, but it looked to be a small cut from a grass blade. Painful, but there wasn't much he could do here under the circumstances. Bruce scooped him up and balanced the child on his hip. "It's a boo-boo. Let me kiss it and make it better." Bruce kissed his palms and the boy grinned in a very Hulk-like way. "Are you going to growl at me now?" Bruce made sure to look shocked.

"Rawwwaaarrrr!" said the boy, his beautiful green eyes framed by his wild, dark curls.

"That was good! That should scare most of the boo-boos away." Bruce wanted to spend time with this child. He wanted to know him better. He wanted to help fix things for him, but he knew Strange was right. He had muddled through their issues for too long on his own. Now that Bruce saw "the monster" for who he was, he had to get help from someone who knew what sorts of developmental delays and other issues the Big Guy was having. Bruce started walking back toward Strange. Saying good-bye was just going to be harder the longer he put this off. The boy was patting Bruce's ears and face and checking out his gray hair again, which genuinely seemed to amuse him. "Just go ahead and laugh. In all the pictures I see, you have gray hair and funny ears, too." Bruce then tickled him, and the boy shrieked with laughter.

"You know you're not really leaving each other," said the sorcerer, and he put a gentle hand on each of their heads. "You'll both be in here. I don't know how many specifics you'll remember about our conversation, but as long as you retain the gist of it—which, trust me, you shall—things will soon be set right. Some of this you'll remember when you need to do something or when you're ready to remember it. I won't forget either of you. It won't be that long till we get to meet again in person, so even if you do forget me, we'll be friends again very soon. Until then, trust each other."

Bruce took one last look at the alien sky and held the child close. The boy buried his face in Bruce's neck and sobbed. Bruce cradled his curly head close and breathed in the smell of him to remember and closed his eyes.


	12. Chapter 12

12: Trade Secrets

Bruce pitched forward in the jump seat, but Coulson caught him by the shoulders before he could do a face-plant on the metal floor. "Well, that didn't take long. We didn't even get a chance to order pizza," he joked. Then he asked in a more serious tone, "Are you okay, Dr. Banner? I know it's a little disorienting."

"Thanks. I'm okay." Bruce's head was swimming with images and ideas and intense feelings, and he was struggling to put a framework to them. _Some of this you'll remember when you need to do something or when you're ready to remember it._ Strange, Bruce remembered it was Stephen Strange and he knew Stephen or he would know Stephen. Was it a child he remembered or himself? Was he crying or was it someone else? Bruce felt like he was missing a lot in both senses of the word's meaning. He knew he missed the humming that came from everywhere and nowhere, so he listened for it. It took a moment, but he found it inside and it became a low rumble. Normally, Bruce would have shut the door and walled it off out of fear, but this time he didn't. He pictured himself standing in a doorway and waiting, wanting to turn the rumble into a chord. _Trust. You need to trust each other._ No one came, but he left the door open. The Other Guy would come when he was ready.

"You know," said Bruce, "Pizza doesn't sound half bad."

"I take it you're ready to 'come in'?" Coulson asked.

"Yes, and I'm going to take you up on your offer of assistance."

"Good, because someone besides us is looking for you, and we need to get you to a safer location. We're all a little exposed out here. I would propose just abandoning Stark's jet, but eventually it's going to leave a big clue pointing in your direction."

"Give me ten minutes. I'll wipe it and send it home on as long and circuitous of a route as possible. Here, you may want to put this someplace safe." Bruce replaced the orb in its velvet bag and handed it to Coulson as the director opened the hatch. Bruce jogged across the distance between the two aircraft, keeping an eye out for Agent May. He didn't see her, but he knew she was out there. The cold air was helping clear his head. Right now he didn't sense the Big Guy's presence, but he was a little nervous about how he and she would get along on what might be another lengthy flight.

Bruce was soon in the Avengers Quinjet-1 with the hatch closed behind him. It took him less than five minutes to program the flight and schedule the erasure. If it got lucky and AQ-1 made it back to Tony, Bruce had left a backdoor in the program for his friend to restore it. He looked around the jet's interior, wracking his brain for anything he ought to take with him. He pulled the envelope out of his back pocket and took the index card out. He carefully tore the last couple of inches off with the word "soon" and placed it in Natasha's locker at her eyelevel. On the way out, Bruce reset the access identifier to "Avengers" and started the autopilot. At the last minute, he grabbed Clint's stash of pizza bagels out of the small galley freezer, reasoning they'd just go bad if the jet went unfound and the power was off. With two minutes to spare, he engaged the flight program and left the plane. "Friday, get her home safe," he called as the hatch started to close. He heard Friday's accented voice respond: "I'll do my best, Dr. Banner. You stay safe, too." Someone was going to have a merry chase if the jet was tracked and a nasty surprise if it was attacked. Bruce paused a second and looked back at the plane… _No way_. If he'd had time he would have gone back to check the program, but that wasn't possible, not tonight.

As he returned to the remaining aircraft, Bruce noted that Agent May had joined Coulson. She was just as intense as before, but this time she didn't peak the Big Guy's interest. Bruce decided to act as if nothing unusual had happened. "Hi, Bruce Banner," he said offering her his hand, "It's nice to finally meet you." He was half expecting her to step in and throw him or put him in a headlock, but she actually gave him a tight smile when she very firmly shook his hand.

"Agent Malinda May. It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Get your gear stowed; we have a tight schedule to keep." Then it registered what Bruce was holding, "Holy crap, Phil, Banner has Barton's pizza bagels!"

Coulson was chuckling, "Ah-ha! The real reason we've chased you across a continent and an ocean. We'll have to fire up the microwave."

Bruce smiled and handed him the container.

The Avenger's quinjet was starting up its engines, so they stepped inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft and closed the hatch. "We'll give it a few minutes of lead time to see if anyone else is trying to follow you. It's unlikely, but not impossible," noted Coulson who was indeed heating up the pizza bagels. May had taken the pilot's seat and was readying the jet for departure.

"So, did you see me leave Sokovia or have you cracked Stark's stealth technology?" asked Bruce.

"Well, I should probably say that's a trade secret, but yes, we were just coming in late to the evacuation to help with stragglers when we got a visual and bet on a hunch. After we were certain you weren't one of Strucker's leftovers, that quickly helped narrow it down."

"That's pretty impressive flying."

"The credit all goes to Agent May."

"Well, it's not that difficult to track someone who's flying high and hard in a straight flight path," she observed.

"That's why you're the pilot and Hulk is not," Bruce added.

"Really?" said Coulson. "That's pretty impressive."

"When we cooperate, we can manage the basics. The rest is a 'trade secret'," Bruce wryly remarked.

"Sounds fair," said Coulson. In a few minutes, he passed the plate of heated pizza bagels around.

"Mmmm! These are as good as I remember," said May between mouthfuls.

"Yah, processed cheesy goodness," noted Coulson as he secured the plate and buckled into a seat.

Bruce munched down his own bagel as he stowed his gear and then settled down in a seat near Coulson.

The display May was watching soon lit up red. "'Unlikely, but not impossible,' you said? There are three bogies now within detection range coming in from the south, and we know they aren't from Department H."

"Can we outrun them?" asked Coulson.

"Yes, but they would probably see us take off. That's most likely what they detected when Stark's craft departed. Okay, two of them have veered off to try and intercept it. The third one is still headed our way."

"Tell Josh and Tad to get out of here. We'll meet them at Rendezvous. We're going to sit tight and find out who this is." Bruce gave Coulson a skeptical look. "Don't worry, Dr. Banner, this won't take long. What's coming appears to be a conventional jet, so it's probably just going to do a flyover. In the dark they're pretty limited in what they can do as far as reconnaissance goes."

"Which makes me think they're not going to do reconnaissance," said Bruce a bit tightly. "If it's Ross, he'll drop a payload and ask questions later. Screw the possibility of an international incident."

"He has a point," said May. "It's what I would do."

"Well, the joke will be on him then. Keep low, and take us down closer to the lake so we're on the gravel shore, but not too close to the water. If we stay at a 90-degree vector that should get us out of any strafing trail."

Agent May engaged the quinjet's engines and they rose off the ground and stayed just above treetop level till they descended the slope to the lakeshore. She set the quinjet down skillfully on the gravel and shutdown everything to idle. Coulson was studying the readouts on a couple of monitors and looking concerned, "May, these things don't have pilots. I think we're dealing with drones, possibly Predator C Avengers. (Oh, no irony there!)"

"That's not good," replied May. "They could have anything from Hellfire missiles to carpet bombs."

Bruce unbuckled himself and slipped on his glasses as he joined the two at the console to study the displays. This really didn't look good. "Let me out," he said, as he sat down in the nearest seat and pulled off his boots. For a half second the two S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives looked at him like he was crazy before the little moment of epiphany when they realized who was making the request. "Please," Bruce said, "I can take care of this, and I'm asking as nicely as I know how." He continued stripping off his coat and then his shirt. "If you don't want S.H.I.E.L.D. involved in an international incident, it makes sense to let me handle this." May nodded in agreement and looked intently at her ranking officer. Bruce continued, "I have a low-frequency tracking device that will activate when I've Hulked-out, and it will change frequencies when I've changed back. It's at an extremely low frequency, so you'll have to look for it to find it. Don't approach the Big Guy. Wait until I'm back to myself before coming in to get me. I may be passed out." He took off his glasses and folded the pair up before handing them and his watch to Coulson. "Those are my favorite pair, so please don't lose them."

May and Coulson looked at each other. Coulson pressed his lips together before he gave a resigned exhale of breath and nodded his approval, "Okay, I don't need to tell you to be careful. These things have exceptionally good recon cameras and sensors in addition to some very nasty weaponry. I would also bet it has something surprising with the Hulk's name written on it."

"I understand," Bruce said. "How long till it's here?"

"The ETA is 11 minutes," May reported. "The cameras are on the belly, so try to take those out as quickly as you can."

Coulson accompanied Bruce to the back of the jet and opened the hatch. Here on the lakeshore, the wind was much more biting and cold. Bruce could feel it, even though his temperature was starting to rise as he began to psych up for the transformation. He walked down the ramp and onto the gravel beach. He was really missing his boots.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," said Coulson as he resealed the hatch.

Bruce chuckled as he started running back the way they had come and toward the high ground. _I must be fucking nuts._ Neither May nor Coulson had mentioned it, but Bruce knew these were top of the line U.S. Military planes. It wasn't a standard Predator "C"; it was an upgraded or modified model. Either way, it had Ross's stench all over it. Bruce supposed they were expecting to catch him off guard and hit him with something nasty to keep him occupied while they brought in bigger guns or tried to subdue him. That gave him pause. _Think, Bruce, there are ways to bring this thing down without compromising our friends._ He changed course to intercept the flight sooner along its flight vector. Now came the tricky part. His anger was at a slow, but steady boil and his adrenaline was surging, but would this be enough to get the Big Guy out of his quiet place without him going completely savage?

Bruce stopped running and put his head down, hands braced on his thighs. He took a deep breath and looked inside. The door was wide open, but there was no rumble, just an unsteady humming. _Where are you, Big Guy? We have a plane to smash_. Still nothing, but now there was silence. Bruce hoped that meant he was listening. _Can we work together on this?_ Silence. _It's our chance to make Ross pay._ HRRRRUMM. _If we're going to make it back to Natasha, this is the first step_. AEEERRRRRMMMM! _Please?_ YES!

That's when something large emerged from his internal darkness. Understandably, Bruce had only ever seen the Hulk on news footage, Tony's suit cam recordings, and shaky handheld videos. What came through the door moved like a cat if felines came in mountain-sized green packages. Although Bruce knew this was happening in his own head, he had to fight off the instinctive urge to either cower or run. As the Big Guy stepped through the doorway and into the light, there was a lopsided grin on his face that Bruce recognized. "Puny Bruce," he rumbled.

"Big Guy!"

The rumble almost sounded like a purr. Bruce thought of dragons as Hulk circled him. They both shared a healthy sense of curiosity, so it didn't surprise him when the Big Guy carefully reached out and touched his disheveled hair. The amused smile was unmistakable and strangely familiar. The gesture was right, but the face was wrong? Then the smile was replaced with a much more alert and focused look and posture as the Big Guy tilted his head and listened.

"I need your help," Bruce said. "I can't do this alone. It's a drone aircraft. No people on board to hurt, just lots of nasty things that will explode and hurt people on the ground if we don't take it down."

The Big Guy huffed out a snort of approval and his grin turned wolfish.

"Then let's do this job." The next moment, Bruce was back in the here and now. There was pain as he felt himself expand upward and outward from the cellular level. Tearing and building. Heat and pain. He saw his hands swell and darken into what had to be green in the moonlight. His senses intensified to the point of becoming overwhelming. He knew his consciousness would soon fade into oblivion so he calmly waited, but it wasn't happening this time. The Big Guy was here and controlling his body, but so was Bruce in some almost disembodied capacity. He looked up at the cold, clear sky and marveled at its depth. Bruce thought of the aurora borealis to the north and the Hulk turned to look. It was beautiful, but Hulk was impatient to get on with the smashing. Bruce thought about large rocks, something big to throw to bring this aircraft down without it getting a chance to fire first or have a look at him. The Big Guy wasn't sure why the stealth was important, but the big rock sounded good. There were several here that would work. He picked up one that weighed a few hundred pounds and passed it back and forth between his hands to get the feel of it as if it were a baseball. _This plane will be coming in fast and probably not too high. We won't be able to hear it first_.

Bruce directed their attention back to the south. The town and most of lake were to the southwest and the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet was back to the west, so they should be able to keep the fight and the damage away from them. He hoped the AQ-1 had picked up on the other two and Friday's evasive maneuvers program had kicked in if the drones had gotten lucky and detected the craft. Bruce could sense the Big Guy's question— _Ross?_ —which came with a series of red-faced images of the general. Bruce responded that Ross's involvement was his best guess, but he'd have a better idea once the drone was down and they'd looked at the wreckage. Hulk thought using drones was cowardly on Ross's part, like having Blonsky do his fighting for him. Bruce didn't disagree. The Big Guy thought about the Abomination and wondered if it was coming. Bruce had no idea, but he hoped not. That wasn't his idea of fun.

Something grabbed the Big Guy's attention. His senses were definitely more acute than Bruce's normally were. _Coming in at almost six o'clock..._. Before Bruce could even think, the boulder was out of Hulk's hands and a few seconds later something was exploding and going down in flaming chunks of debris above the trees a number of miles to their south. _Holy…!_ Bruce was surprised and amazed. _Nice shot!_ , he thought. His reaction got the lowest pitched chuckle Bruce had ever heard as a response. They were quickly headed through the trees toward the smoking wreckage. Bruce reminded the Other Guy that the drone probably carried a number of bombs and possibly something special meant for him. He also tried to picture what the equivalent of the aircraft's black box would look like.

Unfortunately, the Big Guy didn't seem too interested in advice or directions. He was too excited by his surroundings and the prospect of doing more smashing to care what his new ride-along had to say. Bruce was just sort of stuck there for the adventure until he could get Hulk to listen again. Smashing was kind of fun to observe, but it was hard to tell what sort of useful information was being pounded into oblivion. Then came the schadenfreude moment when the Big Guy hurled one last chunk that included some type of unexploded gas bomb. Just a whiff of it stunk and stung, so the Hulk listened when Bruce pointed out an orange piece of debris they should grab and suggested it was time to go.

Naturally, the next problem was they did not agree on where to go. After being called " _BOSSY BANNER_ " for his troubles, Bruce decided to change tactics and shut up before he made things worse. He reminded himself that only about 15 minutes had gone by since the drone went down, so they weren't going to be overrun with Ross's reinforcements just yet. Soon, they wandered back toward the lake where the Big Guy finally sat down and watched the northern lights. Without prompting, Hulk began calming himself down and thinking of music. Bruce recognized the "Theme from _Norma_ " and soon they were both picturing Natasha. _It won't be that long_ , Bruce thought, _I promise we'll see her again_. There was a very audible sigh and a series of confused images that included an angry red buzzing—mostly of Wanda's possession and the fight in Johannesburg, Bruce guessed—then a very clear image of himself from an almost ground-level angle, which could only be from a child's or maybe an animal's perspective. His hand was brushing dark hair back and he was smiling, saying something inaudible. _What was this?_ As Hulk lay back on the rocky shore, they both started to pass out. Bruce tried to fight off the fatigue. He was sure he heard the familiar droning hum of a quinjet's engines and let go of consciousness just as his body contracted and writhed and he came back into himself.


	13. Chapter 13

13: Still Family

When Bruce woke up, he was belted into a seat on the S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjet and mostly cleaned up and back in his clothes. "Dr. Banner, we're nearing our destination and about to make the descent to land. How are you feeling?" asked Coulson from the seat next to him.

Bruce rubbed his hands over his face, "I've felt better, but I could be a lot worse off, too. Thanks for putting me back together." Bruce looked the spymaster in the eye, "Since you've hauled my incapacitated butt off of the lakeshore, please, it's okay to call me Bruce."

"I like the sound of 'Bruce'," Coulson said smiling to himself and nodding, "It's okay to call me Phil or Coulson if you'd rather."

"He pays more attention if you call him Phil," May said over her shoulder.

"Everybody calls May, May," said Coulson.

"I'll bet," said Bruce quirking an eyebrow. He knew from Natasha not to bring up the "Cavalry" moniker. "Well, did you find the black box?"

"Yes, we did. You had it with you on the beach. Thanks, I know that must have been a challenge. The good news is I don't think we were compromised. It will take a while to analyze any data and see if there's anything useful in it, but just from the outer casing codes it's clearly from a General Atomics Avenger class craft with mods. What those modifications were is up for debate since they were all in very small pieces when we left. However, it's looking like it was part of a Black Op/Black Bag Operation to grab you with access to some very special ordnance to keep the Hulk occupied."

"We set off a gas bomb that had a very distinctive stench and hurt the Big Guy's lungs when he got a small whiff. That's when he finally decided he'd had enough and we headed back. Sorry there wasn't more evidence left."

"That's okay, we should be able to get some more detailed source identification from what you saved, but proving anything is going to be very difficult. It was likely identity scrubbed everywhere they knew to do it. What counts is we got away clean, and we'll have you in a safe place very shortly."

"Thanks, I appreciate the trouble you've gone to for me."

"Not a problem. By the way, you seem kind of feverish. You may want to check in with a medic when we land."

"No, it's okay. My metabolism runs unusually hot, especially after a transformation." Bruce hesitated for a moment, "I wanted to ask you something, Phil."

"Go ahead."

"You've used the Orb to visit Strange, right?" Bruce asked.

"Yes, twice now. Red grass; amazing skies. Why?"

"I remember him very distinctly saying that I would remember parts of our conversation when I needed to do something and other parts when I was ready."

"That sounds like Strange. He can be very enigmatic. It kind of comes with the territory."

"Right, I'm getting some bits and pieces back, but the Hulk showed me some of his memories from the same place, and they don't make sense."

"'Sense' how?"

"The sky was the same, the moons, the red grass, but the perspective was wrong. It's from a low angle, like I was holding him as if he were a small child. It doesn't make sense," Bruce shook his head.

"Well, is it connected to some action you need to take? Maybe not. Are you ready to understand it yet?"

"I don't know," Bruce shook his head.

"It's only been a matter of hours since you used the Orb. Give it some time, Bruce. More will come back as you need it." Coulson hesitated, but then empathetically patted Bruce's upper arm. "By the way, not to get on anyone's bad side, but the Big Guy does throw fits a bit like a tired preschooler."

Bruce bit his lower lip but couldn't keep from smiling at that. It was true. "A very large and cranky, tired preschooler," he added. "You're right, but it's going to drive me nuts," he said as he stretched and tried to get the kinks out of his neck and shoulders.

"Well, if it helps. The last time I talked to Strange, he told me to practice my baseball fielding skills. Nothing about why or when, just a wink and a nod," Coulson put his hands in the air and gave an exasperated shake of his head.

Bruce did chuckle at that. "So," he said changing the subject, "where are we going?"

"Well, we're dropping you off with friends at a SHIELD facility. From there the plan is to get you off the map for a bit, so we can see what happens now that there have been two big incidents in a row. There have been several calls for your arrest, but nothing formal yet. As long as that stays up in the air, we're okay, but we need to get you out of S.H.I.E.L.D. hands and to another secure spot before it happens. But, I want you to know this: we're not a neutral party here. We want to help you, Bruce, but it's better if we can do it from behind the scenes. You have other allies who are better suited to be the public face of your defense than a spy agency that's trying to build back up its own credibility. We did go ahead and work up an informational dossier with resource contacts, and one of our psychologists…" for some reason he took a quick look at May, "… has made a list of professional contacts who are willing to work with you. Some of them have experience treating clients who are 'gifted' or 'enhanced' as well, so we're sure you'll be in good hands."

"Thanks," said Bruce sincerely. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"I know you have plenty of reasons not to trust S.H.I.E.L.D., but you're an Avenger and for me that's still family."

Bruce studied the other man for a moment before asking, "How long before you let Clint and Natasha know about you?"

Coulson sighed and stared at the metal floor. "It's really gone on too long, but probably not until your case and some other issues are settled. I don't want them or the other Avengers pulled into the fray. I wouldn't have been here except for circumstances, and I thought you'd appreciate a familiar face."

"I do," said Bruce, "and I won't say anything."

"Thanks, I appreciate that. By the way," he added with a grin, "who has my trading cards? I heard from Maria that Nick put 'blood' all over them."

"Yah, apparently he did—don't tell Steve that though. As far as I know, Natasha still has them. She cleaned out your locker." Bruce raised an eyebrow and smirked, "After she's done punching you, she might let you have them back."

"I kind of deserve that," Coulson said sheepishly.

"Don't worry, she'll probably still be tired from dope-slapping me several hundred times first."

"You both deserve it," said May. Neither male was about to argue that point.

"Which reminds me to ask if there is some way to contact Natasha and Tony, just to let them know what's going on?"

"We can get them word that you're okay, but nothing more substantial. Not yet, not while you're off the radar," replied Coulson. "We'll need to get a few things organized first, and then there will be avenues to communicate, but you'll need to be patient."

May engaged the autopilot and pivoted in her seat to face him, "What Phil is not saying very plainly is you're going to have to see what happens. It's likely you'll have charges filed against you within the next few days, so you'll be doing a lot of communication with and through lawyers before you can be face to face with loved ones on home soil again. You're going to be at the center of an issue that's been building since even before your accident or the Battle of New York. It's grown from the occasional local incident that S.H.I.E.L.D. can handle into international and now galactic proportions. I'm sorry, Bruce, you're probably going to be made the poster child for the worst of it."

Coulson stared at her with a pained look.

"Phil, he needs to know what he's facing. There's no way there won't be substantial repercussions. The reports are saying as many as a dozen dead, 28 missing, and 84 injured in Johannesburg. Neither S.H.I.E.L.D. nor Stark's money is going to make this go away anymore."

"I don't want it to go away, not this time. I need to do something about what happened. If I stay in hiding, I can't directly atone for what I did or didn't do," said Bruce.

"Yes," replied the director, "we understand, but you don't need to martyr yourself or let Ross and his people or some other party get ahold of you. Bruce, you know better than I do what would happen. Your autonomy would be gone, and frankly, we might be looking at something worse than Hydra emerging from this because it would have official government sanction. God knows what they'd do to you. They make the Nazi experiments look like a high school biology class by comparison. This is why you're going to have to stay hidden till we can get this into the courts, so you don't get grabbed and exploited or just made to disappear."

Bruce pressed his lips together tightly and nodded. Part of him was thinking he'd already been grabbed, but at least it was a deal he made of his own volition. He had a feeling he'd be making a lot of these tradeoffs. "You're right. You're both right," he finally said.

"I know this isn't going to be easy, Bruce, but we're putting you into very capable hands. You'll be out of harm's way with the resources to plan out your next steps."

Bruce sighed and nodded. "Thank you," he said again. He had already been feeling horrible about the rampage, but, to be honest, he had thought the numbers would be worse. Still, even one civilian injured was too many. He was suddenly hit with what Natasha must be thinking and feeling. He was a little ticked about being literally pushed into being the Hulk, but it had been the right call for her to make when he had been too afraid to take the risk and transform. God, what she must be reading into his actions—the rejection that he didn't really mean, the confusion over why he'd left. _What have I done?_

As the quinjet descended through the cloud layer in the rosy predawn light, the tops of some large and unfamiliar species of trees stretched across a valley floor between mountainous crags of dark volcanic rock. May expertly maneuvered the aircraft into a small clearing and landed the jet. Bruce had gathered his belongings, coat and all, and was ready to debark with Coulson when May turned away from the instrument panels and laid her hand on his forearm, "I will find a way to get word to Nat that you're okay. The legal types will contact Stark. Everyone who wants a piece of you will be watching both of them, and she'll understand that. Don't break her heart anymore than you already have."

"That was the last thing I wanted to do," he sincerely replied.

"Don't blow it, Doc."

"Wait, how did you… ?"

"Neither one of you are that difficult to read."

"I wear my heart on my sleeve, but she doesn't."

"You just need to know her for over a dozen years and then it's not hard at all."

He chewed the inside of his lower lip, "I hope to do that."

"Time to go," said Coulson from the rear of the jet as the hatch opened and the ramp descended. The warm, humid air hit Bruce like a wall, but it wasn't anything like the heat in continental Africa or India. Although he couldn't see it, he was sure they were not that far from salt water and probably near the equator. The variety of new forest-related smells had already grabbed the Big Guy's attention, but he seemed to be in a patient mood. Bruce heard the approaching Jeep before he saw it appear through the trees and follow a rough track into the clearing.

"Good," said Coulson, "Here's Robby now."

This was the first time Bruce had seen a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wearing kakis and a field hat instead of a dark suit and tie or a stealth rig. He was also the shortest and roundest agent he'd seen, too, but Bruce soon decided the guy make up for his unconventional appearance with enthusiasm and energy. The vehicle had barely stopped moving when he launched himself out with an eager grin and an outstretched hand. "Welcome to Rendezvous! Good to see you, Director," he said as he shook Coulson's hand before turning to Bruce. "Hi, I recognize you, Dr. Banner. I'm Agent Robert Koenig, caretaker here." He took a few moments to really pump Bruce's hand with both of his.

"Hi," said Bruce who wasn't sure what to make of him. "Nice to meet you, Agent Koenig."

"Just call me Robby. Everybody does. Here, let me take your bag, Doctor." Before Bruce could object, the little caretaker had deftly lifted it from his shoulder and the coat from his hands. "Director, are you sure you and Agent May aren't staying? Agents Smith and Jones left about an hour ago when we knew you were okay."

"No, sorry Rob. It's too bad we missed the 'Outlaws,' but we're behind schedule and Gonzalez and company will be having a fit. We can't be any later than we already are," said Coulson.

Robby was stowing Bruce's bag away in the back of the Jeep. "Well, I did make you some muffins and coffee just in case," the agent replied and brought out a hamper and a large thermos.

"Thank you, Rob. That was very thoughtful of you," Coulson said as the younger man handed him the containers. Coulson then turned to Bruce, "It's been good to see you again, Doctor."

"You, too. Thank you for all your help."

"It's been our…" the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director hesitated and stared at Bruce, "pleasure," he finished. "Aren't your eyes normally dark brown?"

"Yah," said Bruce, "why?"

"They're looking rather green." He peered closely again, "Never mind, they're back to brown."

"Maybe the Big Guy wants to say bye, too?" Bruce offered with a smirk.

Coulson smiled and shook his head as he reached out his hand and offered it to Bruce who readily accepted the director's firm grasp. "We'll be in touch as things progress."

Bruce nodded and waved good-bye to May who was looking out from the jet's hatchway to see what the holdup was.

"Both of you take care," Agent Koenig called after them as Coulson returned to the quinjet and the hatch closed.

May had the quinjet in the air in less than two minutes, and they were soon gone into the clouds. Koenig waved Bruce into the Jeep's passenger seat. "Come on, Dr. Banner. Let's get you back to the base so you can eat and crash. You probably won't be at Rendezvous for very long, so you won't need a lanyard. Still, it's a good place to be right now because we can help you plan and keep things off the radar."

"That sounds good," said Bruce, and he climbed into the Jeep and fought off a yawn. "I don't think I'll be able to avoid a nap for much longer."

"I'd be surprised if you could sleep on this rough of a road, but I'll wake you up when we get there if you do."

Bruce was out almost the instant his eyes closed, and he could barely remember being helped out of the Jeep and led into the facility where Koenig showed him directly to a room with Spartan décor but a more than agreeable bed. He pulled his boots off but didn't bother getting out of his clothes. He took his glasses out of his shirt pocket and placed them on the small nightstand before rolling over. As he drifted off, he thought he'd left his music on, but he soon realized it was Maria Callas singing Donizetti's _Lucia di Lammermoor_ , which was on his lab play list but not in his travel deck. That's odd, he thought, but as the images started to come, he realized it was probably spilling over from the Big Guy as he slept. He was thinking about working with Nat on a mission, watching her from a distance and admiring her work. Bruce thought pairing the memories up with the music was rather ingenious of the Big Guy as he drifted off into oblivion.


	14. Chapter 14

14: Just a Temporary Setback

Tony Stark had held a grudge against Santa Claus for most of his childhood. From the time he was four, Tony—the kid who had almost everything he could build or ask for—had very politely requested a brother every year in writing until he quit believing in jolly old elves. (Not that he would have turned down a sister, but girls could be icky!) At that point, he became desperate enough to ask his parents, but the request had so upset his mother and angered his father that he'd dropped it and never mentioned it again. He was a gregarious, but lonely kid who tended to drive the adults around him crazy with questions. He loved his parents, distant though his father might be, and Mr. Jarvis, but he really wanted someone to listen to him, look up to him, and be his co-conspirator. At least that was how it had started out. Later, after his parents had died, he'd wished he had someone with whom to share his pain and grief, someone to understand why he was so angry.

As the years went by, Tony had gradually forgiven Santa—if not his parents—and moved on to find other reasons to be brilliant, unhappy, and self-destructive without needing a sibling. In fact, he'd pretty much forgotten about his childhood wish until Agent Coulson had dumped that digital dossier on him with all the information about the Avengers Initiative. He had felt interested enough in the other folks' backgrounds, but when he flicked opened Bruce Banner's folder, he instantly remembered reading the man's paper on predicting random fluctuations in proton charge reversal in irradiated metals and thinking the mind behind it was brilliant. Tony also remembered reading about the guy's unfortunate accident and the following transformation and destruction at Culver. The Battle in Harlem hadn't been pretty either, and he'd toured that firsthand just to see what two behemoths could do. Naturally, Tony dug into the S.H.I.E.L.D. files under Dr. Banner's name with relish, hoping to find out more details to understand what had gone wrong and disrupted what had otherwise been a promising scientific career.

His conclusion was Banner had been heartbreakingly close, but he'd been pressured into taking a gamble as funding was being yanked by the military. Tony didn't have to read much between the lines to understand who had done the pushing and goading because General "Thunderbolt" Ross's reputation was well known among military contractors. After having met with the man, it was easy for Tony to imagine the pressures the infamous bully had applied to a young scientist desperate for a breakthrough. After that, the files became either vague or redacted, but it was clear to Tony that Banner had made a breakthrough. (Although Bruce now shut him down every time he suggested this,) Tony firmly believed the experiment had not been a failure. True, the side effects had turned out to be a bitch, but the Hulk was at least 80% of what the military had wanted to achieve. The Big Guy just wasn't always controllable or good at taking orders. In Tony's book, that wasn't a failure, it was just a temporary setback. When he finally met Bruce, then insulted, poked, fed him fruit snacks, and teased him a bit, Tony knew this was what he'd been missing: if not a brother, at least a peer who shared his passions and interests, someone he could talk theory with and who balanced him out when he did cross a line. It was a rare day that went by without Tony thinking he ought to thank Santa (or maybe a not-so-sainted guy named Nick) because what he shared with Bruce had been worth the wait.

That's what Tony had been thinking as he watched Bruce finally quit playing 'possum and drift off into a fitful nap. Tony spent the next half hour flicking through the reports and data he'd neglected from Cho's team over the past few months. He was just finishing up with some of Bruce's notes, when it hit him that he was going to be proven right in the end. Even if it took another decade, Bruce's body was self-correcting and adapting to his conditions. The bad news was that it wasn't returning to a human norm; instead, it was finding and redefining what it would be. _Take that, Ultron, some of us do evolve_. As long as Bruce stayed Bruce, this didn't bother Tony, but he wasn't sure what Bruce thought about this situation. Surely, his friend already understood what was happening since it was clear enough for Tony to see it?

Out of curiosity, Tony opened up the TechUWear app and looked at the body temperature charts. As they'd both guessed, Bruce ran four to six degrees hot, but as Tony continued to flick deeper into the brightly-colored 3-D images and body scans, he noticed one important area was close to normal. This turned the scowl Tony had been wearing back into a smirk, and then he grinned like a fool for a few minutes until he got his glee back under control. It was going to be hard, but he could hold this in for a few hours since the payoff was going to be so good.

He shut the app off and put the pad away before adjusting the cabin lights down further. Resting his chin against his fist, Tony watched Bruce finally breathe in and out evenly and deeply as he slept. Tony counted twice that he'd seen green start to creep up his throat and recede, but the app hadn't appeared to note any changes in readings. Normally, data gaps like this would have irritated Tony, but he was already thinking this was information he didn't want to see recorded and leaked into the wrong hands. Thank God, neither he nor Natasha were required to report they'd observed any of this. Well, he and the Little Spider were certainly into "The Search and Rescue Committee" thick as thieves, so what was a small flush of green between friends?

They'd come up with this name while drinking her stashed vodka and sniffling on each other's shoulders when Bruce was missing, but their once-brittle relationship had begun a long slow thaw before that. Admittedly, he'd been the one to take offence when he had fallen under her spell and she'd played him for an idiot instead of falling for his charms. When it became clear that Bruce was going to be working closely with Natasha on what became the lullaby, Tony had kept his mouth mostly shut. The one time something snide and catty had slipped out, the wounded look Bruce gave him was enough to stop Tony more thoroughly than a Hulk punch. Tony had sputtered an apology and admitted he was out of line.

After that, he even passed up numerous occasions for prime needling over the next few months as he saw his friend become more and more interested in and excited by her. It was subtle at first, an occasional glance at Natasha when she wasn't looking, then returned looks and smiles that went from shy to increasingly more goofy by the week. What Tony couldn't believe was that this wasn't just on Bruce's part because Natasha was doing it, too. Of course he'd immediately thought the worst and wanted to confront her for leading his friend on, but for Bruce's sake he'd limited himself to walking up behind her one day as she silently watched Bruce working in his lab through its glass walls. He'd cleared his throat and she'd jumped. The snide remark about Bruce having a cuter ass than Clint died on his lips as he watched her immediately blush, look horrified at being caught off her guard, and finally grasp their secret was out all in a half a breath. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't realize… ." He looked her directly in the eyes and saw nothing but honest raw emotions. He pointed his index finger back and forth between Natasha and Bruce's direction, "You're sincere about _this_ aren't you?"

She'd looked a bit hurt, but nodded, "Yes, I do care about him. I was a little surprised by it, but yah, Bruce has really grown on me."

"Okay," he nodded and looked away, "be good to him then." He'd given her a pat on the shoulder and continued on to his lab.

Of course he'd been pretty asinine with the zucchini joke during the middle of the fight in Sokovia, but hey, he'd been trying to work out a number of problems to save everybody's butts, so there was no way his filters were functioning at full capacity. Knowing Bruce wouldn't hear him say it also made a passive-aggressive comment like that much more likely to slip out. (Hey, he was working on that!) After the event in Sokovia was over, all of them were a little shell-shocked and punch drunk for a number of days (Buy Pepper a farm?! WTF was he thinking?), so when it hit him that almost a week had gone by and still nothing from Bruce, he started to realize something was most definitely wrong. Natasha had been back to the tower once, while he was out of course, to pack up some of her things. He gave her a call to ask how she was doing and to see if she'd heard anything. Other than the blip in the Banda Sea, she was just as clueless and maybe more worried and heartbroken than he was. Tony asked her when she planned to be back at the tower, and she said she'd be in the next day to box up more of her stuff.

He spent the rest of the afternoon carefully going through Bruce's things in the lab, on the computer network, and finally in his apartment. Tony felt a little guilty about snooping through his friend's things; unfortunately, he didn't know exactly what he was looking for either. He wanted to see if there were any clues as to where Bruce might have gone, any plans, or possible covers. After several fruitless hours, he realized he was hungry, so he returned to the communal kitchen area to see what was in the fridge since it was the closest and Pepper was still out of town and avoiding the repair work. It was then he saw the package and some additional mail on the counter top. They were all for Bruce, so one of the front desk staff had probably brought them up from the mailbox and not known where to put them. It was all junk except for the box, which was small, rectangular, and addressed to Bruce from an antique store across town. Tony really wanted to open it, but he settled for taking it to the infirmary and x-raying it. He couldn't hold back a snort of laughter because it was most definitely a gift for Natasha.

She was there bright and early the next morning at the unholy hour of 8:00am, but Tony was already up and coffee was brewing. Natasha sat down across the composite-topped island from him, and he poured and passed her a cup of coffee. It was pretty obvious that both of them were sleep-deprived and miserable; in fact, they both looked like raccoons with dark circles under their eyes. "I'd like to welcome you to the first meeting of the Bruce Banner Appreciation Society, which we can quickly transition into the Search and Rescue Committee if we so choose and can agree upon a course of action."

Natasha smiled and shook her head, "So moved and seconded. Discussion?"

"I really need your help," he said. "I've looked through the lab and his room. I've searched his computer files, and I've found nothing. Not even any substantial cash withdrawals or purchases. No action even in the accounts we set up for this kind of situation. Unless you have some ideas, I'm down to making calls to everyone I don't know in his address book."

"I actually went through all of those the last time I was here. You're right, there isn't much to go on. But, I did get some news early this morning from a friend that you'll want to read." She already had her phone out, and she pulled up a message that was a silly-looking Emoji-type gif. She copied it and pasted it on top of itself three times and slid if off the screen to reveal some hidden text: "B ok b patnt."

"I may want to buy a vowel later, but I guess that's 'Bruce (or Banner) okay be patient,' right?" Tony asked.

"Bingo!" she said.

"Any idea who sent it?"

"Yes, and it's legit. New S.H.I.E.L.D., old friend, so he's probably in good hands. He's alive and okay. I should feel relieved," she ran her hands down both sides of her face and down her jawline as she stared up at the ceiling, "but I don't."

"Why?" asked Tony. "This looks like very good news."

"Tony, I don't know if he'll want to come back. I screwed up."

"Screwed up how?"

"Bruce didn't want to be in the fight in Sokovia. He said so, and I literally pushed him off a cliff and into a well to bring out the Big Guy and get him involved. I knew it was the right thing to do at the time because people were going to die, but I forced him into it."

She was starting to tear up, and Tony knew it had really cost her to tell this to him of all people. However, better than anyone else, he understood. He reached across the counter and took her hands. He held them until she could look him in the face, "You made the right call, Nat. It wasn't the easy call, but it was the best choice you could make. And he understood that. Do you want to know how I know?"

She nodded, "Sure."

"Look who came to the end-of-the-world party. It wasn't the pissed-off, green and mean monster with no control, it was the Big Guy with Bruce's brown eyes, the one we can work with and trust. We've both met that pissed off dude up close. Bruce won't admit it, but the Hulk we work with is almost as much Bruce as the Big Guy."

"But he still left," she said, not quite ready to believe him, but underneath wanting to buy it.

"Look, we're talking Banner logic here. You've seen the files. You know the self-loathing and self-destructive tendencies." Tony paused and ran a hand through his hair as he paced. "It's not like you and I have ever talked about this or tried to coordinate before, but I think you might agree that we're both problem-solvers. You have your missions; I have my projects."

"Okay," she said, "I don't disagree with that."

"We're also both good at seeing the potential in things, and we see possibilities in people, too." She nodded, so he went on. "Bruce is basically a magnet for people like us because he's like a fixer-upper property or a stray who just needs a good home. We both see what he might be. We both see where he might go, but it's easy to forget how damaged he is and how little it takes to undo all of the ego boosting and confidence building we've managed to pump into him the last few years. Even if we do coordinate and get him more help, there are still going to be days when he listens to that bullshit his dad and Ross put into his head."

She didn't say anything, so Tony went on, "Do you know what I think happened? I think he applied his _loco logos_ Banner logic and thought we'd all be better off without him. ' _I'll keep everyone safe from me and go be all noble and lonely in exile with just me and my martyrdom and misery_.' That's what I think happened. The more good things that come his way, the more he has to deny himself a break or admit that he deserves some happiness or even just a stable life."

Natasha nodded. She looked like she had herself under control again. "We were thinking about leaving together," she said tightly.

 _Shit, he hadn't thought about that._ "Banner logic," he said quickly, "that just made him run further and faster." He gave her a narrow look and raised one eyebrow as comically high as possible, "I am so hurt that neither of you even thought to include me." He held the look for several seconds until she finally smiled and he started laughing. "Ouch, I think my face is stuck," he said rubbing his eyebrow.

She finally snorted, "Taking one for the team again, Stark?"

"Of course, I'm all about spazzing out my good looks to make sense of my dorky partner's moments of pure idiocy." After a moment, Tony straighten up, "Please, don't take this wrong, Natasha. I don't know of any other way to put it. I kept hoping that if you two would just do the deed. You'd both be happy. You'd both stay."

She shook her head, "I know. Me too, Tony. That's almost all I thought about at first, but if he was going to run, then he was going to run. Sex wouldn't have mattered."

They looked at each other—both so worried and miserable they were pathetic—if this kept up much longer someone was going to breakdown and hug the other.

"Well, what's done is done," she finally said. "Now, I guess all we can do is be patient and… ."

"No, don't say that," he interrupted. "I don't know about you, but I will go insane if I can't do something." He paced and turned at the end of the island, "Oh, wait, I almost forgot this." Tony reached for the small package on the end of the counter and slid it to Natasha.

"What's this?"

"It came in the mail. I didn't open it, but what's inside is kind of Natasha-ish."

Now it was her turn to wag a comic eyebrow at Tony. She took the box and examined the labels. "It doesn't have my name on it."

"Trust me, it's for you. C'mon, open it. We can always rewrap it. You're a spy; you have to have done this before."

"Okay, if it will shut you up." She took out a mother of pearl-handled penknife with a delicate small blade and expertly cut under the tape without damaging the paper until it came free of the box. She ran the knife around the seam just to make certain there were no surprises before setting it down on the counter and lifting off the lid. There was a note on top from the shopkeeper to Bruce:

Dr. Banner:

Please find purchased at auction as per your request one marcasite, ruby, and sterling silver broach with set of matching earrings circa 1922. Your account is paid in full. May the lady wear them in good health.

Yours,

Johan Clovis

Estate Purchases

Natasha reached into the box and brought out a gray velveteen case, which she opened to reveal a delicate stylized replica of a spider done in black stones and silver filigree and detailed with ruby eyes. "Wow, he remembered," she said while shaking her head and smiling. "We saw the estate collection in the store when we were window shopping, but it wasn't up for auction for a month." She looked at the earrings and let Tony inspect the set, too, before she replaced them all in their case. "Can you put these in a safe place somewhere? I don't feel right taking them," she said huskily.

"No problem," replied Tony. "Pepper has a safe in her office or I can put them in Bruce's room." Tony turned to pour himself more coffee and warmed up Natasha's, too. As he replaced the carafe, he gazed out the window behind Natasha and paused. "What the hell…"

He walked around the end of the counter and Natasha turned and followed his gaze.

"Friday, what aircraft is that approaching the landing pad?"

A female voice with a Celtic lilt replied, "It appears to be Avengers Quinjet One, Sar."


	15. Chapter 15

15: Don't Leave Out the Good Parts

Tony and Natasha both turned to stare at each other with shocked looks before both simultaneously broke for the stairwell. Natasha beat him to the next floor and they both dodged through half finished renovations and repair work to get to the deck as the jet landed on the platform. It set down with a little less grace than normal and had some visible surface damage to both of the wings.

"Friday, is anyone on board?"

"I don't know, Sar. She's not responding to my hails."

"Scan it. Apparently, there's more damage than what we can see," Tony muttered.

"That seems like a safe assumption, Sar. It appears to be locked down tight. It's asking for an Avenger."

"Which Avenger?"

"Not specified."

Tony approached the jet and touched the access pad with his thumb, but the display flashed, "Access Denied." "What the …!" He keyed in a code and received the same response. "Friday, what's going on?"

"Here," Natasha reached around Tony and used her thumb on the pad. This time the display flashed, "Welcome, Ms. Romanoff," and the hatch depressurized and very slowly began to open. She tried not to smirk too much. "Friday, is Mr. Stark currently an _active_ Avenger?"

"No, he is currently classified as a reserve member. Sorry, Boss."

"Geeze, a technicality," he complained. "Friday, be careful downloading anything off this beasty. We don't know where she's been and with whom she's been fraternizing."

"Understood, Sar."

They certainly didn't expect to find Bruce onboard, but they were hoping for some evidence to help piece things together.

Tony wasn't sure where she'd gotten the handgun, but he let Natasha take the lead. Nobody was home, which was just as well because he didn't have a fondue fork on him. Tony went for the displays at the front of the plane and started flicking through the navigation screens. Sure enough, Bruce had run a file purge program, but had included a backdoor for him to find and restore the data. Smart move if you didn't know who was going to recover the jet, but he expected nothing less from Bruce. Tony also ran a quick diagnostic and found minor structural damage as well as software issues. This bird had definitely been shaken if not stirred.

While Tony worked at the displays, Natasha inspected the rest of the aircraft's interior. Bruce had cleaned out most of his locker and taken a few supplies from the larger storage bins, a coat and some other clothing, a few MREs ( _Yuck, really, Banner?!_ ), and Clint's stash out of the mini-fridge. Now _that_ she had to laugh at. Bruce normally turned his nose up at the highly processed pizza bagel "fat pills," but maybe the Hulk didn't. She looked in the lavatory, but other than some discarded disposable wipes and an iron gray hair on the edge of the sink, that was it.

"Hey, Natasha," Tony called from the main compartment.

"Find anything?"

"In a few minutes I'll have something, but we need to talk."

"Just a second," she said as she opened her own locker. The hidden bottle of Belvedere vodka was where she stowed it and still intact. She gathered it up and a scrap of paper fell off a shelf in front of her and landed at her feet. She didn't remember seeing it before, so she scooped the paper up and shut the door.

"Hey, have a look at this," she said as she slid into the seat next to Tony and handed him the fragment.

"' _Soon_ '," he read with a puzzled look. "This was where?"

"On a shelf in my locker. The handwriting looks familiar, but there's not enough to tell for sure. It's not Banner's, but I'm thinking he may have left it."

"That's pretty damn cryptic. I think he was afraid this jet might not make it back, so he wanted it to appear clean if someone else intercepted it. I'm just guessing, but I think we'll find out something more in three… two…"

"Reboot complete. File restoration 96% successful. Welcome, Ms. Romanoff and Mr. Stark," intoned the ship's Friday.

"Okay, this is what I wanted to bring up, Nat. Before we delve into what I've recovered here, I think we both know the lawyers are going to be taking over very soon and there are going to be depositions and statements and hearings pretty much like we both went through before except this time it's going to set precedents for how the international community deals with incidents like Sokovia and Johannesburg. The best we can do is to protect Bruce and keep him out of government hands, especially General Ross's, but there is no way to avoid a public legal proceeding of some sort."

She nodded and pressed her lips together tightly. "I'm sure you're right, Tony."

"I've had a couple of folks Pepper keeps on retainer for international cases working on this issue off-and-on since just after the Battle of New York, so we aren't starting from scratch. I've added a criminal lawyer as well. Things are going to get pretty bad and then worse before we're through this. Anyway, as a founding member of the fan club, do you want to be in on this or do you want to excuse yourself just in case you have to testify?

"In for a penny, in for a pound. I'm in way too deep to start getting skittish now," she responded.

"All right then. It's time to see what might have happened. Friday, be a dear and transfer full data and visual schematics to the open lab and observe maximum safety protocols. Please include damage scans of both interior and exterior of AQ-1."

"As you say, Boss."

"What have you got there?" he said looking at the bottle of vodka in her hand. "Isn't it a bit early in the day?"

"Nah, not for the good stuff."

That got a laugh out of him. They both disembarked from the plane, and Tony took a moment to look at the nearest section of wing with surface damage. "This is weird," he remarked. "It looks like both shrapnel and corrosive damage."

"Don't touch it. I think I know what it is." She looked at it closely and then backed off enough to get a look at the pattern on the wings. "I think we've lucked out and this bird went through enough rain to neutralize it, but that's a Hydra-style acid hit—nasty, nasty stuff. It's a little like grapeshot from a cannon with an acidy-tart surprise instead of a chewy center. I'm guessing by the distance between the burns that it avoided a direct hit and flew through part of the shrapnel burst."

"Friday, hit this with some H2O and check for any acid penetration once we're inside, please."

"Sounds like a plan, Boss."

They continued inside to the lab and Natasha snagged a couple of shot glasses from the bar on their way past. Once there, Tony pulled up the 3D model and display. "Let's play through the cabin's vid-log first and put a map up over here to track this, Friday. We can go over things by the keystroke later if we need it."

"What size, resolution, and speed, Sar?"

"Surprise me, but don't leave out the good parts."

The holo-display lit up and a translucent one-third size model of Ultron appeared seated at the controls singing a Disney tune. Friday sped it up and then slowed as the Hulk came aboard and very unceremoniously threw the shiny bastard out the rear of the jet. Hulk gazed outside for a while then closed the hatch. Natasha's voice could be heard at the front of the plane, talking the Big Guy through, but it didn't work out the way she'd hoped.

"Pause," said Tony. "Is this okay? I know it can't be easy for you because it's hard for me to watch."

"Give me a second," she said and she opened the bottle and poured herself a shot glass and filled one for Tony, too, before bringing the small glass over to him. "Okay, let's keep going," she said. They briefly clinked shots and she downed hers while Tony just sipped a bit.

Friday brought the scene back into motion. The Hulk sat there for a long time after breaking contact with her. Natasha walked around the hologram to get the best angle on his face. She wanted to know so badly what was going on inside his head. The display sped up and indicated he had sat there for over two hours and headed almost straight west. He held his head in his hands a couple of times, but he was clearly sticking this out longer than either of them had ever seen Bruce stay the Hulk.

At four hours in, the Big Guy was almost curled into a ball. He stayed that way for another hour until he finally relaxed, sat back up, and looked around. He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his face (the gestures were very much like Bruce's own); clearly a little disoriented, he blinked and seemed to try to focus. Finally, his body started to pull inward and the massive musculature started to contract. From the look on Bruce's emerging face, it clearly hurt, but the green was disappearing back into his veins and his eyes were back to their normal deep brown. He stood up, now that he could, and started checking displays and coordinates as the pink finally returned to his fingers. He stood there with his arms folded and his right hand running over the stubble along his jawline as he studied the displays. At that point the hologram started to breakup. "Sorry, Sar. I'll have to skip this ahead," Friday apologized. "The audio quality isn't so good either."

In this next section, Bruce was cleaned up and dressed, but still studying the readouts. The jet was in Canadian airspace and descending. Bruce put on a coat from one of the lockers as the jet set down. The picture started breaking up again. Bruce said, "I need to stretch my legs. Let's meet in the middle."

"Sounds good," said a garbled voice. Bruce seemed fairly relaxed as he keyed in an identifier, almost reverently touched the Jarvis bumper sticker, and then he walked toward the rear and opened the hatch. He grabbed his packed duffle and the hatch closed behind him. After that, Friday skipped to about 25 minutes later and Bruce returned without his duffle. He spent about five minutes programing in a course and the erasure. Next, he activated the alternative energy sources and brought Friday's evasive maneuvers sequence online. For a moment he stood there, perhaps considering his options. He retrieved an envelope from a back pocket in his clothing, pulled out an index card and carefully tore it, then placed the fragment in Natasha's locker. The feed then broke up completely. "That's it for the onboard recording, Boss."

"What do we have as far as navigation after this, Friday?"

"Good news, the record is intact, Sar."

"Yea, put it up." Tony pulled the hologram map to the middle of the open area. They watched the jet's avatar leave Sokovia and fly across the European continent and across the Atlantic. "Okay, hold it as he comes in for a landing at Bear Lake. How long is the jet there on the ground?"

"Thirty-six minutes and twelve seconds," reported Friday.

"Play the audio clip from that segment again."

Bruce's voice said, "I need to stretch my legs. Let's meet in the middle," and a distorted voice replied, "Sounds good."

"Can you enhance that second voice?"

"Sounds good," it repeated.

"That's the best I can do, Boss."

Tony looked over at Natasha who had been listening hard, "Recognize it?"

"No," she said. "Obviously it's a male's voice, but that doesn't narrow it down much."

"Are we at least sure this is S.H.I.E.L.D. we're dealing with?"

Natasha frowned as she considered the question, "I'm 90% sure he's been in S.H.I.E.L.D. hands, but I would bet they secured him and have since moved him along to another location with a trusted third party. That would be standard procedure in cases like this. That way they can deny culpability or knowledge of his whereabouts when the charges are filed."

"Okay, so we think he was intercepted by S.H.I.E.L.D. here at Bear Lake. He seems to have gone willingly and sent AQ-1 away to where, Friday?" The map lit up as the icon showed an almost random set of maneuvers out over the Atlantic only fifteen to twenty minutes after leaving and then a random path that mostly kept the jet over open water before returning days later to the tower. The alternative power sources had functioned even better than he and Bruce and expected. "Let's focus on those first few odd maneuvers just after takeoff." The display moved in reverse. The jet had made several dips, climbs, and turns and a textbook perfect loop that Friday magnified to give the viewers the full effect. "Well, what do you think, Natasha? Looks pretty evasive to me."

"Friday, can you zoom in and show us this sequence in 3D?" she asked as she accurately imitated Tony and Bruce's three-fingered flick in the holo-display. The program complied. At the end of the loop, there was actual weapons fire in two short bursts visible.

"Wow," murmured Tony as they studied the model, "I was going to say it's just short of a dogfight, but this has to be where she took the damage and probably gave some as well. Since it's a straight and level pattern after that, I'd say Friday and AQ-1 won one."

"Get out the paint and we'll add a skull or two to her nosecone," Natasha deadpanned.

"Friday, do you have any other information? Satellites? YouTube videos?" Tony enquired.

"Not for this location, but in the same timeframe by Bear Lake I do have more data."

"Display, please."

"YouTube video posted the morning afterward by user Leafsfan67 shows an explosion and fire east of the lake." It wasn't much of a video, but something had taken a hit and gone down over the woods. "Also, satellite data from 9:00am EST confirms a fresh crash sight in that same location. Likewise, local law enforcement reports confirm a crash." As the photographs came up, they both drew a sharp breath as they looked at the burned area and a leveled swath of forest.

"I'm going with Hulk having something to do with this," said Tony.

"Me, too," she murmured. "Look at those scorch marks and the burn pattern. It's purple. What the hell was it carrying?"

"I don't know, but it may have included potassium chloride or maybe ammonium tri-iodide? They all leave traces of purple, but it would require a massive amount to make that and God knows what else to make that kind of a mess." Tony paced around the display, "I think they were trying to poison him, but it looks like he got the jump on them and took the delivery vehicle—whatever it was—out first."

Natasha added, "The police report says there were no pieces of wreckage larger than a foot in diameter. That had to be deliberate on someone's part."

Tony's phone pinged, "Hey, Pepper is home early!"

"Sar," said Friday, "Ms. Potts is in the lobby and headed up. She's bringing a guest with her."

"And who would that be?" he asked.

"Ms. Jennifer Walters."

Natasha's head snapped around from studying the display to look at Tony. "That's Bruce's cousin."

"The lawyer," said Tony. "Friday, let's shut the display down here and tell Ms. Potts we'll meet them in the commons room."

"Sure thing, Boss."


	16. Chapter 16

16: The Most Productive Path

Jennifer Walters was a petite brunette just a bit taller than Natasha though part of her height was the killer pair of heels that perfectly matched her purse and briefcase. She'd contacted Pepper, and they'd met at the airport after both flew in from different parts of the west coast. Natasha couldn't help but notice that Jenn and Bruce shared the same wavy dark hair and a generous, off-center smile, but her lively, intelligent eyes were a gray green, and her hands were much more animated than preoccupied like her cousin's. She explained to them that Bruce had contacted her four days ago to represent him and work with the group Tony and Pepper already had set up to form a defense team. Their first meeting would be in about an hour and a half there at the tower, but first she wanted to talk to the three of them before the lawyers and staff got there.

"As I was telling Pepper on the way here," Jennifer began after the brief introductions, "I've spoken with Bruce, and he wanted you all to know he's okay and not to worry. We have him at a secure location, and he'll have to stay below the radar until we can get this in the courts."

"How long will that take?" Tony asked.

"Our sources tell us the UN's International Court of Justice is preparing for a Contentious Issue Petition to be filed within the next 48 hours. The first thing that will need to be determined is whether the so-called World Court has jurisdiction to proceed. Meaning, we can accept the Court's jurisdiction and plead our case or we can argue it does not have jurisdiction and fight it."

"Well, are we accepting jurisdiction or opposing it?" Natasha asked.

"That is going to depend upon who is bringing charges against whom. We're hearing different things: Bruce may be singled out, and if that's the case, it could be the South African Government who brings the charges or it could include other parties who claim an interest. If it's a broader complaint, it could bring in all of the Avengers and involve Sokovia, South Africa, and other parties that aren't strictly government entities."

Tony rolled his eyes, "Well, let's hope it's the former and not the latter."

"My bet is it will just be Bruce and his will become a test case for this sort of situation," Jennifer postulated. "That would be in the World Court's best interest and probably the broader society's as well."

"Sure sucks for Bruce though," mumbled Tony.

"Jennifer, what do you mean by 'other parties'?" Natasha asked.

"It's hard to say yet, but Bruce has enemies. I'm sure you all know about General Ross, who is still the most prominent among them, but there are others in the government who are less obvious and think they have a claim on my cousin, as well. We have also heard through the grapevine that parties within 'big pharma' and the weapons industry are literally bidding to buy a piece of Bruce."

"That is sick," said Pepper with disgust. "It's like he's a commodity or a carcass they want to divvy up like wolves."

"Vultures have better manners," noted Jennifer, "but that is exactly how they see him. Even a small vial of his blood or a tissue sample could be used in a hundred different ways, and they don't care how it's acquired. We have a person close to Ross, so we're aware that he would like to pursue a claim that Bruce's body is government property. Although we can't prove anything—yet—Bruce and some of our allies were attacked by drones as part of a so-called 'black bag operation' to grab him. We've linked it to some of Ross's buddies who deal in black market arms, mercenaries for hire, illegal R&D, and other such shenanigans. The drones were top of the line C-class Avengers with weapons designed specifically to attack the Hulk."

Tony made eye contact with Natasha who gave him a pointed look. "Okay, fine, maybe we better fess up. You'll never guess what flew in without Bruce piloting it this morning?"

"AQ-1?" blurted Pepper.

"The one and only. I'll brief you two on it when the legal eagles get here," he said. "She looks like crap, but we did convince her to reveal a few secrets."

"I'm looking forward to hearing what 'she' had to say," said Jennifer with interest. "Although we may never be able to use this information in court," she continued, "it's always good to know who our enemies are so we can prepare. Obviously, this is a lot of information to get our heads around. What questions do you have so far?"

"Are we working with S.H.I.E.L.D. at this point?" Tony asked. "As much as we've done for them, I hope they'd be willing to help."

Jennifer straightened her glasses and took a deep breath, "The new version of S.H.I.E.L.D., the one that helped everyone out in Sokovia, has been extremely helpful behind the scenes, but they cannot take a leading role in the legal part of this operation. As you know better than I do, their reputation was in tatters after the gutting they took. There is a lot of restructuring and flux at the top, and their resources are limited. However, we have allies there, and they will do what they can to help us, especially when it comes to information gathering and connecting us with other resources. That's really all I can tell you about them for now, but, yes, they are doing as much as they can."

"Are there any other 'parties' that we're working with?" Natasha asked.

Jennifer started to count them off on her fingers: "We have allies within the government here and abroad. We'll be hiring PR people and specialized paralegals and other assistants as needed. Also, I don't know a lot of details, but Bruce is working with a team of diagnosticians and therapists to improve his communications with the Hulk. I know he really wants to be back here, but it's going to take some time, cooperation, and patience." She looked from face to face, "Other questions?"

Tony turned to Pepper, "Did you put Jenn in contact with Erin, Ahmed, and… uh."

"Rosario." Pepper finished for him. "Yes, they've been on the phones, and they'll all be here at 11:00am to hash things out in person, so we can get everyone on the same page. You and Nat are going to be able to stick around for part of this, right?"

"I'll be here till the tired and silly end of it," Tony said. "Nat?"

"For as long as you need me," she replied. "I took a couple of days off."

"Good," said Pepper, "I ordered lunch from the new Indo-Asian grill down the street since I'm sure Tony has cleaned the place out while I was gone."

"Actually, without Bruce here to cook, it's still pretty well stocked with staples. You know me; I just liquefy everything and suck it through a straw," Tony said with a bemused smirk. "Seriously, Pep, as long as you ordered enough vegetarian stuff, that bunch should be fine."

"So, are we taking a break now?" Natasha asked. Everyone mutually agreed, and Pepper and Tony headed off to get the details settled for the meeting.

"Natasha, could I speak to you someplace a little more private? Bruce had me record something for you."

"I was going to go check Bruce's lab and apartment to make sure there aren't any smelly biohazards in the making. Would the lab work?" Natasha asked the attorney.

"Sure, I'd like to see it. Sometimes when we Skyped I'd get to see the lab in the background, but I've always been really curious," said Jennifer.

Natasha led the way up a floor, across the open lab area she and Tony had used earlier and up the short set of stairs to Bruce's glass-walled lab.

"Wow, this is all so open and…"

"See through?"

"Yes, I don't think I'd want an office with glass floors. Not with a skirt on anyway," said Jennifer.

"Interesting how Tony didn't seem to take that into consideration when they designed it," Natasha remarked mildly as she keyed in her number and opened the door before ushering Jennifer inside. It wouldn't take long to check on things since there were only a few containers in the refrigerator and a couple of plants to water. The conversation was what she really wanted. Also, she knew Jenn was Bruce's closest relative and Natasha wasn't above wanting to make a good impression. She forced herself not to pause as she passed his lab coat hung up beside the storage cabinets. On her first visit post-Sokovia, she had held it to her face and breathed in the smell of him that still lingered on the fabric: soap and citrus and warm crushed sage. She as afraid it would quit smelling like him if she indulged in it too much anyway. God knows Jennifer would think Bruce had taken up with a nut case if she did.

Natasha retrieved the small watering can from under the sink and filled it from the filtered water tank. No need to let the supply languish when there was something that needed it, so she gave the pothos and weeping fig a good hit each. She'd pinched the vining plant back the last time she was here, but it was already taking off again. "Just find them a happy spot and let them be," Bruce had said. "It's hard to kill either one as long as they're watered right."

Jennifer was looking around the room rather nervously and making an effort to avoid touching anything. Natasha smiled and remembered doing the same thing the first time she was there.

"Relax, Jennifer, there's very little you can hurt here unless you make a real effort," Natasha reassured her. "So, tell me what was Bruce like as a kid?"

"Pretty much like he is now, just a sweet and goofy guy with a brilliant mind and his own demons to fight," the cousin said with a wistful smile. "Even then he couldn't really catch a break without tripping himself up. Sound familiar to you?"

"Very much so."

"Is this lab secure, Natasha?"

"Friday," Natasha addressed the program, "Would you please make sure we have some privacy?"

"With pleasure, Ms. Romanoff," replied the program and the wall-to-wall glass darkened a shade as the security freatures engaged.

Natasha nodded to the dark-haired lawyer as she replaced the watering can, "That's about as well as we can do here. I don't really want to try and keep any secrets from Tony if we don't have to do that."

"Of course," said Jennifer. "I just thought you might want to have some privacy to see this. Is there an actual USB port somewhere or is it all Wi-Fi and Bluetooth?"

"Here, let's use the dock and tablet," Natasha said seating a Starkpad in the dock on the counter top. "Friday, give it a thorough scan. No offense, Jennifer, but Stark would never let me live it down if I infect his system."

"You know I'd never let that happen, Nat," lilted Friday.

"You're a pal, Friday," Natasha reaffirmed. She certainly missed Jarvis, but she'd taken a special liking to Friday and the program's attempts at conversation with her.

Jennifer also smiled at Friday's go at informal banter as Natasha helped her connect a sleek external drive. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "This is probably going to be pretty bad quality since it's just me with the laptop and one hell of an encryption program." She soon had a video file queued up. "This is from a couple of days ago, and Bruce was getting moved right after we recorded this, so it's all very rushed." The file opened and loaded then started to play. Jennifer retreated to the far end of the lab to give the former spy some space. Natasha pulled up a stool and sat down. Bruce was dressed in a gray t-shirt and sat at a desk or table in a dim room with pale nondescript walls and ceiling. She guessed he was letting his beard and hair grow out since he hadn't shaved and he was already looking a bit shaggy. He rubbed his laced fingers together looking nervous and fidgety, but otherwise, he seemed fine and all in one piece.

"Hey," he said with an uncertain smile. "I hope you're okay, Natasha. I remember your leg was hurt when the Big Guy left." He took a couple of deep breaths, "I don't know where to start, but I love you, and I'm sorry that he and I had to take off without you." Bruce stopped to run both hands down his face and shifted uncomfortably, obviously struggling to find the words. "As I'm sure you know, I have some problems that predate the accident, so until I get them worked out between me and the Other Guy, I'm pretty useless to everyone… or worse. Please be patient with us. I've found a place and some good people willing to work with him and me, but it's going to involve a period of very intensive immersive therapy. I need to do it now to get things lined up so that when the charges are filed, we'll be able to show I'm taking constructive action and maybe demonstrate some progress." Bruce held his left hand to his face again and ran his fingers across the scruff along his jaw for a moment. "I'm just so sorry. I didn't plan it like this, but there was no other way to do it under the circumstances. I promise, Natasha, I will find a way to make this up to you. If the therapy and other plans go well, we'll be able to see you in a couple of months. Please help Jenn with what she's strategizing. She knows how the law and politics work. I know we'll get through this." He used his right index finger to make a circle over his heart and cross it, "I love you and I promise we'll be together soon."

The video file came to an end, and Natasha sat there with her feelings finally coalescing out of her confusion and turmoil. She had mostly burned through her anger over the past week, and as soon as she saw him alive and safe, it fizzled out entirely. Bruce hadn't so much as mentioned being forced to Hulk-out. She'd thought he would be angry, but he seemed to have moved past it. As she thought about the situation, however, that didn't surprise her. They both had their own fears and insecurities, which blinded and distracted each of them from what the other person really felt. Well, she'd wrestle with this later after she had thought about it more, but she finally felt some relief from her initial despair.

Natasha's first professional instinct was to rewatch and analyze the video footage for clues, so she could begin the process of tracking him down; however, she knew that would not be the wisest nor most productive path to take. Whoever had attacked Bruce was probably watching her and the rest of the team as closely as possible for clues to his whereabouts. Now was not the time to be impulsive. Like a spider, she knew how and when to be patient.

Natasha looked up and found Jennifer gazing out the far glass wall with her back to the lab. It was hard to tell if she was looking through to the outside or at the reflection of the lab behind her. "Okay, Jenn," Natasha asked, "what's the plan? What do you need me to do?"

The dark-haired lawyer turned, "At the moment, I need you to help me think some of this through. Forgive me, I'll have to be a little blunt." Natasha shrugged as a sign to go ahead because she understood. "How long have you been with Bruce?"

Natasha couldn't avoid a bit of a snort, "That really depends what you mean by 'been with'. We've worked pretty closely off and on for the past few years, trying to integrate the Hulk into the team and calm him down after missions. Outside of that, we're friends and we do some social things together, but until recently it's been as part of the group. We've kept things pretty quiet and low key because the idea of being together is a pretty recent development. Then Ultron's attack happened right in the middle everything."

"Do you think anyone from the outside would recognize that you're a couple?" Jennifer queried.

"Well, Steve and a female friend spotted us first, but the whole team knew by the end of the Sokovia mission thanks to Stark. I don't know what people may have thought before that except that we worked closely together? It's not like we've had the chance to share an apartment if that's where you're going."

"The reason I ask is two-fold. First, there are some legal advantages and implications for petitioning for common law standing because of the spousal privilege. You would be exempt from being compelled to testify against Bruce and your communications would also be exempt. Because this will be an international case, it gets a little trickier, but former British colonies traditionally accept the spousal privilege."

Natasha looked at Jennifer skeptically, "I can see the advantages to this, but I'm not sure it will stand up to scrutiny."

"I know. I'm just putting the idea on the table for consideration. Even if we don't petition for standing, it may very well get out that you're more than just a teammate. If it does, you'll become a much more visible target for Bruce's enemies, not to mention the press."

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest and gave Jennifer a no-nonsense stare. "Been there. Done that," she deadpanned.

"Okay, I get it," the attorney said while throwing up her hands. "You can handle what comes your way, but what I'm saying is we could work this both ways if we have to."

"Well, that makes a little more sense."

"Alright, I'll remember that's a possibility, but it certainly won't be our opening strategy."

"Good because I'd rather not get pinned down playing defense in the first place."

"Got it. Let's talk about playing more to our strengths then. How much do you know about Thunderbolt Ross?" Jennifer asked.

"I've read Bruce's file, and I've been through all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence and some 'other' sources," Natasha admitted. "I was also at Culver when they ambushed Bruce there, and I went through the rubble of Stern's lab in Harlem before I ever met Bruce face to face."

"Good start, but the background is not going to give you the whole story with this guy. As you know better than I do, Bruce's being an Avenger, working with S.H.I.E.L.D., and living under Stark's roof have kept him from being harassed and given him precious breathing room. Without those buffers, he's suddenly vulnerable again. Sharks like Ross smell blood in the water, so they're starting to circle. Ross is not the only one. In your research, did you pick up anything about Advanced Idea Mechanics?"

That got Natasha's attention, "AIM. Stark has had to deal with them. Let me guess, Ross's new best friends?"

"Give the lady a prize!" Jennifer replied. "They tried to recruit Bruce years ago through one of their front organizations, but he knew something wasn't right and avoided them. Now, it looks like they might be supplying Ross with some high-tech goodies in exchange for some sort of access to Bruce. We have our sources in place, and they should be able to keep an eye out, but AIM is so deep in the shadows it's hard to tell if they're using Ross or if he's just trying out their toys."

Natasha figured she'd leave it to Tony to give the briefing on the prodigal quinjet, but what they'd spotted on the ground near Bear Lake had to be connected. "My guess is that Ross or his allies are already playing with the toys. I don't want to steal Tony's thunder, but that quinjet has been through a high-tech attack and the evidence on the ground at Bear Lake points to some pretty nasty stuff being targeted at the Big Guy."

"Well, the second part I can confirm because that's where Bruce told me the Hulk took down a drone and made a mess of some new weapons tech."

"Was the Big Guy okay?"

"Yeah, Bruce managed to get him to take it out from a distance."

"Good, that was smart," Natasha couldn't help but chuckle inwardly at that as she imagined the two finally cooperating.

"I'm bringing this up because even if we need intelligence, it can't come at the price of exposing you," explained the lawyer.

Natasha raised an eyebrow and smiled, "I can give you names and referrals, but it's a little late to avoid exposure."

"I'm not talking public exposure—I'll let whoever our PR person is worry about that—I'm talking about you taking off and going rogue on these guys."

"Who, me?" Natasha asked almost innocently.

"Yes, you. It's one thing to get dragged into the public spotlight and another to go looking for trouble. You're the best there is at the spy game, but we need you not to play it. At least not out in the open or until it's really necessary for the gloves to come off."

Natasha's expression had gone a bit blank to cover up her growing irritation. Jennifer studied her face for a moment and pressed on. "I know we're asking a lot, but this is going to be a complex game played on multiple levels. We need to know we can depend on you to stick with the team's strategy. I need you on board to help so we can get Bruce home to you."

"Then don't worry. I'm not about to jeopardize that."

"Thanks," said Jennifer, "I am really going to need your input and opinions, even if we don't get to crack any heads."

"And here I thought you wanted me for my muscles."

Jennifer grinned, "Bruce said you could be really funny."

Natasha shrugged, "Only when I want to be." Jennifer replied with a wink that was almost identical to Bruce's own, and Natasha could imagine the trouble the two cousins must have gotten into together as children.

"One more thing, and I really do need your opinion on this." Jennifer explained, "Bruce has always been more of an idealistic person than a pragmatic one. He's also a very decent and moral man to the point of it being a fault sometimes. He's really set on the idea of Reconciliation."

Natasha looked a bit puzzled, "As in South Africa, not the Catholic Church, right?"

"Right. It's based on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of Apartheid. I'm not entirely against the idea, but it's not a good opening move, not if it's criminal charges in the World Court we're facing."

"So what do you want me to do?" Natasha asked. "I'm not exactly the most credible person when it comes to my track record on ethical issues."

"I'm just hoping you can reason with him. We could probably negotiate this into a settlement but it would appear weak to open with it."

"I'm the one who literally pushed Bruce off a ledge so he'd become the Hulk. I'm not known for being the moral compass of the team."

"What?" said Jennifer.

"Oh, he didn't tell you? Bruce is too kind of a person to bring that up I guess." She took a deep breath. Better to get this out on the table now than have it come out later. "Well, we were going to leave together, but everyone needed the Hulk in Sokovia. Bruce was afraid for the Big Guy to be around civilians after what happened in Johannesburg, but I did the deed and forced him to transform. I denied him his choice. You probably think I'm pretty horrible now."

"No, to tell the truth, I think you did the right thing. It all turned out for the better because he was there as the Hulk. I mean, that is, until he took off and left, which Bruce admits now was the wrong move." Natasha looked at Jennifer, still not quite ready to let go of her last bit of guilty skepticism. "You know," Jennifer continued, "Bruce really blames himself for the whole situation, not you. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it was the Hulk part of him that insisted on leaving because Bruce says his memory of it is pretty muddled."

"Okay, good to know," Natasha acknowledged. This supported what she and Tony had seen on the jet's video earlier. "You might want to ask Tony or even Steve to talk to him. Tony is at his most persuasive when he's face-to-face and there needs to be a snap decision. Steve, on second thought, would probably listen to Bruce and offer to help him do it. The more I think about this, the one you and Bruce really need to talk to is Wanda. If you're going to apply for amnesty, she's the one responsible for setting off the rampage, so she might be interested in participating for the same reasons Bruce does."

"Hmm, I should have thought of that. Including her would make a lot of sense."

"I'm not about to tell you how to do you job, Jenn, but wouldn't it be better to contact the authorities in Johannesburg and negotiate something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before charges are filed?"

"Okay, let me think on this just a bit and consult with my connections in South Africa. I guess I can contact Wanda through the new Avengers Complex?"

"Here, let me forward you her direct number," Natasha said, pulling out her phone and exchanging numbers.

Right on cue, Friday's perky voice came over the speakers. "Pardon me, but Mr. Stark has requested you both come to lunch on the eastern veranda. He said if you want the 'good naan,' you better get there before the other lawyers do."

Natasha rolled her eyes and ejected Jennifer's portable drive for her. She had copied Bruce's file to watch again later, even though that voice in the back of her head said nothing good could come of it: she'd either watch it obsessively or over analyze it frame by frame or both. At the moment, however, she sincerely did not care to think that far ahead because she knew Bruce was okay, he was in good hands, and just maybe he didn't blame her.

"Well, it sounds like we better get a move on or face the tragedy of second-rate naan," Jennifer remarked as she packed the drive away in her briefcase.

"Don't sweat it too much. That just means whole wheat in Tony's book."

Jennifer snorted then headed toward the door.

Natasha let her fingertips brush across the shoulders and down the sleeve of Bruce's white lab coat as she trailed Jennifer out of the room. _Two months. She'd been on plenty of assignments more than twice that long. Now Natasha knew she had this covered._


	17. Chapter 17

17: Let's Get Something Started

As Natasha continued to wait in the doctor's office, she started to play around with the idea that just maybe she ought to consider the possibility this wasn't cancer or something else that horrible. This went against every pessimistic Russian bone, brain cell, and drop of blood that remembered her motherland, but she was getting a little tired of the misery. Natasha had always been a practical person, but she wasn't a fulltime cynic. So, what if that last one wasn't a real period? She started with a mental count and then she counted on her fingers, and she finally pulled out her phone and brought up her calendar and counted again just to make sure. If this was a pregnancy, she knew exactly when and where it might have happened, roughly two months before. In fact, it had happened twice that day and again later . . . . Her cycle lined up and so did their "activity." Oh, yes, she knew exactly when it could have happen if such a thing was actually possible. _Oh, shit!_ She almost started to laugh out loud, and bit her lower lip instead. How appropriate would it be for Bruce's and her imagined progeny to have been conceived as either part of an "accident" in the lab or an act of premeditated seduction? Someone up there had to be laughing because the irony was just too perfect.

The second week in December, Natasha had been on a mission in Central America that had very nearly turned into her own personal flashback from hell. The suspect she'd been trailing from a corporate espionage ring set a fire to cover his escape. He'd cut through a construction site and found plenty of accelerants to torch the half-finished structure. What he hadn't counted on was the small fleet of natural gas-powered delivery vehicles along with a large storage tank next door to the construction site, all of which went up in a fireball. The unlucky thief was a crispy critter and the hard drives he'd stolen were nothing more than slag on a burning parking lot. She'd gotten herself out of the building with only minor contusions and scrapes when she dove out a window just ahead of the initial blast. She rolled when she hit the ground and then she'd been pelted with flying soil and gravel for her trouble. When she'd realized there were multiple gas tanks that could go up, she'd almost frozen up. This wasn't a residential area, but she was immediately thinking of other buildings she'd seen consumed along with their inhabitants. When the building came down behind her, she curled into a ball and stayed there for several minutes half buried in loose soil as her mind replayed the screams of the people trapped in the hospital wing while she burned her hands trying to open the doors before the backdraft hit. After a few minutes, she pulled herself together in time for her backup to finally show. She kicked at the melted plastic that had probably held data on hybrid human cloning and left the mess for the forensics team to figure out.

She'd cleaned up on the flight back north, but she couldn't wash off the stink of her fear and panic quite so easily. It was just before noon and the snow was coming down thick and picturesque like it should in almost mid December when they arrived back in New York, so she was glad her ride had dropped her off in the sheltered quiet of the parking garage below the tower. She happily bypassed the lobby and headed straight up on the private elevator. All she wanted to do was find Bruce and feel his arms around her. He was now the first thing she thought of when she imagined home and this made her feel incredibly centered and happy.

"Salutations, Ms. Romanoff, it's good to have you back in the tower," lilted Friday as soon as she hit the elevator. Natasha had gotten to know the program very well since she and Bruce had moved into the customized suite of rooms on the same floor as Bruce's lab. With time on her hands, she'd worked with Friday and appreciated _her_ for her quirks and curiosity rather than just thinking of the program as "not Jarvis." (Something Tony didn't seem to have the heart for yet.) In fact, they'd negotiated several deals that Tony hadn't caught onto (yet), but what he didn't know so far wouldn't hurt him and would help everyone out in the long run. Today, for example, they would be using the first protocol she and Friday had worked out right after Bruce and she had arrived. "You already know what I want to know, Friday," Natasha said with an eager smile as she rocked back and forth on her toes, eager with anticipation.

"Dr. Banner is in his lab, and no one else is currently in the upper floors."

"Where are Tony and Pepper?"

"Presently on route to California."

"Good for them. Any of Dr. Banner's therapists scheduled?"

"No more of them today. He had a session this morning that went quite well. Would you like to see the footage?"

"I would later. What I want to do right now is have some private time with Dr. Banner. Initiate Honeymoon Protocol if you please."

"Oh, how I love it when I get to help you keep a secret," Friday enthused. One of the reasons Friday liked the Protocol was that part of the deal incorporated her own playtime, which included getting to try out new language and turns of phrase with relative freedom and plenty of feedback from Natasha.

"Calm down there, girl," Natasha laughed. She wasn't sure if Tony had figured out any of these particular little tweaks, but eventually he was going to recognize that Friday had more personality lurking behind that lilt than the program normally let on. Today, however, was not going to be that day. "Just make sure the cameras are looped, there's no way anyone can walk in on us, and nobody can see in through all that glass."

"You're all set, Ms. Romanoff. Should I tell Dr. Banner you've arrived?"

"No, I want to surprise him." He would be expecting her sometime before noon, and the therapy session earlier in the day gave them the added bonus that the Big Guy would have already put in an appearance today, so he'd be quietly de-stressing in the back of Bruce's consciousness and less likely to manifest even as just a shift in his eye color for the next several hours.

The elevator finally arrived at the correct floor. She dropped her bags and coat inside their apartment door and headed around the corner and down the familiar corridor for Bruce's lab. He had his back to her studying a schematic model of an energy storage cell he'd been designing, but the doors were opened. Perhaps because he was alone, he had some music on for the entire lab suite. She could tell by his collar that he was wearing one of the tailored shirts she'd bought him in a subtle woven blue on blue stripe, one which he knew she liked. Natasha quickly recognized one of their songs playing as she approached, so she began to improvise as she sang with the instrumental:

I've flown around the world in a plane,

Lived through explosions in Paraguay

But, baby, I'll be so brokenhearted

If I can't get somethin' started with you.

Bruce was grinning as he turned around and set his tablet on the counter and stowed away his glasses, which he'd had perched on the top of his head, before hanging up his lab coat. He joined her on the next verse with his pleasant singing voice as she stuck with the Ella Fitzgerald lyrics. Bruce took her hands and quite smoothly turned her and wrapped his arms around her from behind, swaying her with the music:

You're so supreme, lyrics I write of you—

Scheme, just for a sight of you—

Dream, both day and night of you

And what good does it do

If I can't get started with you?

Bruce leaned in and began to kiss her neck, "Oh, baby, I've missed you so much." He inhaled deeply and paused, "You weren't kidding about the 'explosions in Paraguay' part were you?"

"Nothing gets past your nose, does it, Doc?"

"All the better to savor you with, my dear," he retorted as he kept nuzzling and kissing the right side of her neck and behind her ear. She smelled incredibly good, even with the smoky residue. "I want to eat you up because you smell so amazing."

She pressed her body back into his warm front and arched her back. "Then eat me up and mark me, Bruce," she said breathily, "mark me as yours. I want to be claimed." She knew where this would lead, and she wanted it.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Because I'm not going to be able to hold back once we do get started. If I mark you, I'm going to get rough."

"I need you to mark me," she insisted, "and I don't mind if you get a little rough." After her earlier panic attack, she found herself really longing to feel intense sensations and know she was alive. Natasha reached up over her shoulder and ran her hands through the curls at the back of his neck and pulled him close. He breathed in sharply and then bit into the muscle at the base of her neck on the right side. He was careful not to worry at her, but kept up the pressure to hold her to him. "Oh, God," she panted, and he reached around her to unfasten her military belt and pants. His left hand then moved up to fondle and caress her breasts, cupping them then pinching the nipples a bit through the layers of fabric. He soon slipped his right hand into her panties under the lace waistband, exploring and massaging her fast-dampening crotch. He began to rock his hips into her in rhythm with the band's music, and she pressed as much of her body into him as she possibly could. Natasha wanted to melt into his hungry, quivering warmth. It was impossible not to moan as his mouth and tongue worked her neck. She could now feel the insistent swelling of his erection pressing into the small of her back. Their mutual excitement and desires were building fast.

Almost too suddenly, he let go of her neck, breathing hard and trembling with their mutual lust and longing, "If it's okay with you, I want to take you right here in the lab." He let her go and turned her around. She smiled mischievously, surprised he hadn't suggested this long before. He grinned and kissed her quickly on the lips then tugged her pants down and helped her step out of them. She hurriedly shucked off her boots. Before she could unbutton her top, Bruce had stripped it off over her head. He backed her up to the lower of the two lab tables and lifted her onto its edge. She frantically unbuttoned his dress shirt and dragged it off him. He looked so good bared to the waist, breathing excitedly with his lips a little swollen from working her neck and his eyes large and intense, drinking her in with mounting hunger. Bruce was quickly on his knees, opening her legs and parting her cleft with his trembling fingers. He finally slowed down and calmed himself a bit as he pressed his mouth to her crotch. She buried her hands in his thick curly hair. He gently held back the folds of her labia and used his tongue, swirling it over her clit, teasing it from side to side. Natasha leaned back onto her elbows to give him a better angle as he guided her legs over his shoulders. Bruce licked down the edges of her cleft and then deeper into her vaginal opening to bring her to the whimpering edge of coming before he leaned back and stood up, brown pupils still dilated, but no sign of green. He searched his pockets and pulled out a condom. Somehow, it was an older one from an early run he and Tony had designed, but it would do. He handed her his phone from his pants pocket, and without his needing to ask she ran the scans. (Theirs were nearly negative though something on the other end of room was registering low but persistent readings from behind a containment field. "Mental note: Ask about that later!" she thought.) Bruce quickly toed and kicked off his shoes and pulled off his gray pants and boxers. She could have stared at his naked body for hours: dark hair and beautiful eyes, broad shoulders and perfectly proportioned limbs and musculature. The chest and body hair were a turn on, too. He was as fully erect and as hard as she'd ever seen him get. He tore the condom's packaging open with his teeth and applied the condom, which was soon stretched tight on his shaft.

Wow, if she'd known doing it in the lab excited him this much, she'd have arranged things months sooner. He stepped between her legs and she wrapped them around his hips as he entered her and pulled her close. "You are so tight, baby," he breathed. His cock felt so good inside her. After he saw that he had marked her neck with teeth prints on the right side, he touched and probed the bruises cautiously, and then he gently cupped her chin and turned her head back to center so they could kiss as he started to thrust into her. Natasha took his face in her hands, stroking his jawline as they continued to kiss. "Do you want me to mark this side, too?" he asked between lip-locks, stroking the left side of her neck with his right hand.

"You don't have to ask, Bruce," she sighed. His speed and eagerness caught her off guard as he sunk his teeth into the left side of her throat. She cried out his name, secure in the fact that no one would hear them and misinterpret anything. This time he was rougher on her, gnawing into the muscles where they met at her neck and shoulder, kneading them with his mouth, tongue, and teeth. She whimpered and begged him not to stop. Then he began to suck and really bruise her. She moaned at the sharp pains his love biting caused, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, cradling her and supporting the back of her neck. He pressed his hard cock into her slowly and deliberately, building into harder thrusts.

"Oh, God, Bruce," she groaned, "Fuck me hard." He moved his left hand down to her lower back and mashed their hips together as forcefully as he could. She locked her ankles together around him behind his back and started to shudder as her back arched. "I-I'm coming, Bruce!"

He released her throat and slammed his hips into her again. "Natasha!" he finally roared out nearly in the Hulk's growling register as he came with her. They held onto each other, shaking and shuddering through till her orgasm was done. Bruce supported and propped them up with his right hand flat against the tabletop. "Oh, shit," he breathed out, trying to catch his breath, "I hate to be a downer, but I'm pretty sure I broke the condom."

"I don't care," Natasha said. "There's nothing radio active coming out of you, that's going to hurt me. We've been at this for months and produced the world's most boring graph on radioactivity ever made. I think we ought to just say fuck-off to the damn 'raincoats'."

The look on Bruce's face went from a mix of horror and surprise at what she was saying to thoughtful consideration. It was hard for him to let go of the idea that he was "toxic," that he could destroy and damage the people nearest to him simply by being physically close, much less being intimate. She could see him struggling to wrap his head around the mounting pile of data that proclaimed him _safe_ rather than _dangerous_. He'd wrapped these fears around himself to the point of them being an excuse for his isolation, which further reinforced his AS discomfort with social interactions. "You have a point," he finally said, "so let me think about it."

"Don't think too long, Doc. I've been dying to go down on you for months, but I might change my mind," Natasha purred with a wicked grin.

"Oh, geeze, you're going to have me stiffened back up before we're finished with round one." With that, he eased her further back on the table, and he leaned back so they could assess the damage. "Wow," he said as he removed the condom, "split the side and blew out the end. That's something I didn't think was possible."

She laughed, "You're not shooting blanks, Doc." Bruce almost instantly blushed as he chewed on his lower lip, laughing with her, but clearly thinking of something beyond her joke. "What?" she asked.

"I was just supposing, if it were possible, I'd have you so pregnant right now."

She reached out and stroked his jaw before running her fingers through his irresistible curls again, "I know."

Bruce leaned forward and they rubbed their foreheads together.

"If you're really interested in this, we could talk to Helen," she said, "and there are people who specialize in these things."

"Let's get through the Agreements List first. Once that's out of the way, I want to get serious about this. I don't want the world in what's just our business."

"Alright, Doc, that sounds like a plan to me."

They both leaned back to make eye contact. "Promise?" said Bruce.

"Promise," Natasha said tracing an X over his heart. They both looked at each other and grinned goofily until Bruce noticed something.

Looking rather sober, he murmured, "You're going to kill me."

"Why would I do that?"

He shook his head, "I warned you I wasn't going to be able to hold back."

She wrinkled her brow. "It can't be that bad."

He tilted his head and examined both the right and left sides of her neck, "It looks like a vampire mauled you on this side and a werewolf attacked you on this one. Sorry?"

"It's okay, Bruce. This is winter. That's what sweaters and turtlenecks are for."

"Oh, really?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Come here and I'll give you a reason to wear one, too."

"Let's clean up first. I want to be cuddling on the couch when you do it."

"I love you, Bruce."

"I know you do, Nat. I am so in love with you, too. Welcome home."

"Thank you," she said, lacing her left hand's fingers with his right hand's before pulling them both close to kiss them. "Let's go get cleaned up, Doc."


	18. Chapter 18

Note: Picking right back up where he left off last week. This chapter is for my Beta Reader Karen (Merry Christmas!) with extra fluff and headcanons. Thanks to Karen and John as always for their Beta work.

This week is going to be a rollercoaster ride that may not be "smut" per say, but it is mature territory. Please see the End Notes for more explanation/discussion of the sensory issues.

18: Domestic Seduction

He laughed as he stepped back and started picking up their discarded clothes, "This will be my third shower of the day, but it will be a lot more fun with you in there."

She smiled back, "What happened?"

"Oh, I've not seen the video yet, but when I came to at the end of the therapy session this morning, I was pretty much a head-to-toe rainbow of paints."

"Let me guess, Maggie designed that little activity, didn't she?"

"You bet. Bravest special education teacher in the world and older than my mother would have been had she lived," he smiled as he stuffed his discarded socks inside his dress shoes and picked them up. "The rest of the team didn't look too bad, but Maggie and the Big Guy must have rolled in finger paint. I never knew that stuff came in five-gallon-sized buckets."

"So what did you paint?" Natasha asked.

"It's on a twenty-foot length of butcher paper hanging up in the Big Guy's gym. I'm pretty sure you're in it. We can take a look later if you want."

"Yah, this afternoon would be good."

They arrived back at their apartment and Natasha punched in their code; then, Bruce took her armful of clothes off her hands and headed to the laundry room, "Hey, bring me your soiled stuff from the trip. Anything you need to warn me about that needs soaked or hazmat treatment?"

She brought in the bag, "No blood this time."

"Yea!" said Bruce and he mimed a little happy dance.

 _God, he was so cute!_ "Here's the muddy stuff that's going to have to soak," she said handing him the dark fatigues she'd worn during the mission. "So, what do you detect, Doc?"

Bruce took a deep breath, "Mud (of course), smoke, chemical solvent of some sort, ammonia, burnt plastic (reminds me of fried electronics strangely enough), and just a hint of burned… ewww… body?" He held the fatigues at arm's length and looked at her questioningly for confirmation. It wouldn't be the first time.

"I can't think of anything more to include," she said with her cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. "I've been meaning to ask, are you channeling the Big Guy for this smell analysis stuff or are you kind of like a supertaster? I've never known anyone before with your nuanced sense of smell who could break things down like that. You're like a one-man CSI team."

"No, no channeling, just extra sensitive with lots of practice. I could do this way before the accident. I remember being able to tell what my father was drinking and how much before I was out of my crib. I told myself if I learned to do that maybe I could protect my mother because that way I could warn her."

Natasha reached over and cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look her in the eyes. She hadn't meant to bring him down. Natasha didn't say anything for several heartbeats until he finally smiled and leaned in to kiss her softly on the lips. She kissed him back for a good few minutes before they both stopped and leaned back to look at each other again. "You were a good son, Bruce. She loved you."

"I know," he said with a sigh as he nodded. He had worked very hard with the therapist to acknowledge the first part of her statement. "Anyway," he continued, "my acute sense of smell is just one part of the package of hypersensitivities that can go with the spectrum. I'm sort of like a chromatograph that breaks gasses down into their components and analyzes them. I probably could have been a perfumer or a sommelier. I've paid more attention to this and put some effort into developing the ability into an asset instead of a liability over the years. If I'm not careful, it can get overwhelming. The Big Guy has the same sensitivities too, but his are across a much broader spectrum of senses, and unfortunately, he overloads a lot easier. We're working on it. Bright lights and a variety of noises are the worst irritants, but you already knew that."

"Wow, I had no idea how deep this went," she said, stroking his arm. "It's part of why he gets worked up when loud weapons are used, isn't it?"

"Pretty ironic, huh?" said Bruce. "It's the noise as much as the actual pain of the impacts and explosions that take the Big Guy over the edge. Ross was on the right track when he used the sonic cannon, at least if he really wanted to piss Hulk off." They both smiled at that.

"So, not to change the subject," she said with a sly smile, "but what do I smell like to you?"

"Well, you smell like _you_ , which is an intoxicating smell. Aside from your floral antiperspirant and perfumes, you smell like pineapple and citrus, salt, light musk, a hint of wood smoke, and right now I can tell you're ovulating because the pheromones are just this warm, slightly sweet undertone that permeates everything." He swallowed hard, a bit embarrassed at what had just come out of his mouth unfiltered. "Maybe salted caramel is the closest thing to it. Does that make any sense? Sorry?" he said, already feeling uncomfortable and exposed.

"Wow, I had no idea you could detect all of that, Bruce. It's really quite sexy to hear you say it."

"Good then because it can really creep some people out. That's why I don't mention it almost ever. Also, I'm around you all the time, so I have plenty of 'data' and I know your nuances though everyone's profile shifts. When I first meet someone, I can get an impression that helps me remember the person, but the Big Guy can place where he's smelled individuals and connect them to specific locations. He's not really concerned about remembering names, however."

"Ah, I'm sure that comes in handy when you need to verify someone's identity," she said knowingly.

"Yes," he said with a tight-lipped smile, "it certainly has."

"Okay," she said after several minutes of silent smirking on Bruce's part as they sorted the laundry and got the first load running in the washing machine, "I'll just have to torture it out of you later."

"I'm up for it," he said with a wink, "but I've told you everything already."

"We'll see," she said as she headed toward the bathroom.

Man, she was never going to let him live down knowing about Coulson before she did. He finished up with the sorting and followed her into the bathroom. She was getting a good look at her bruises in the mirror. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her right shoulder, "Sorry, Sweetie."

She laughed at him, "Okay, you can quit with the puppy-dog face. I told you it's okay. You did exactly what I needed you to do."

He unfastened her bra and slipped it off her, kissing the back of her neck, "Let me make it up to you." He approached the over-sized soaking tub that Tony had insisted they needed when he expanded Bruce's original apartment for the two of them— _Trust me, you will thank me later_. Both of them were morning shower people, so they'd only filled the big tub a few times in the last couple of months. Bruce turned on and adjusted the water. "What are you in the mood for? Smells or stuff to make you feel good?"

"You know I'm going to say, 'Surprise me,' right?"

"Okay, no complaints then, Doll."

"I trust you implicitly, Doc."

Bruce opened up the cabinet that practically had a pharmacy-worth of bath items because some poor intern had been given a Stark Industries credit card and then told to go stock it before Bruce and Natasha moved in. He found some oatmeal and rosemary "bath cubes" that looked pretty safe and settled on them in part just to get the cabinet door shut so the smells would quit assaulting his nose. He held the rock-like cubes up for her inspection.

Natasha looked at the package and smelled it before giving an amused nod. Bruce dropped a cube in the half-filled tub and watched it start to bubble and crumble. Next, he checked the stack of clean towels, and then he retrieved his shaving supplies from the vanity cabinets and laid the safety razor out on the counter top with the brush and soap. "Oh," she said looking over his shoulder. "Who's getting a shave?" He smiled at her very sweetly and bowed deeply to her from the waist with an elaborate hand gesture to her. "Really?" she questioned him, mostly amused.

"This has been on the to-do list for months, since the UK, in fact. Don't tell me you've forgotten. I'll be so hurt!" he joked.

"No, I've not forgotten. I just wasn't thinking you'd be using a freaking safety razor."

"Hey, be nice, that was my maternal grandfather's and it's one of the very few personal things I've been able to keep ahold of over the years. Besides, I'm a lot more comfortable using it than a disposable on your legs."

"I better not regret this," she said with a dose of skepticism creeping into her voice. "If I didn't trust you…"

"But you do. Relax, it's not like I'm using a straight razor on you." He turned off the water and adjusted the temperature control on the panel, "Come on, Beautiful; let's get in. The water's fine." He swung his left leg over and offered her his hand. Natasha gracefully accepted his assistance and stepped into the warm water. Bruce settled behind her once she sat down in the fragrant bath. "See, this isn't so horrible, is it?" he said and kissed a trail across her shoulders.

"No, not at all, Doc," she said and leaned back into Bruce, resting her head against his left shoulder and enjoying the relaxing warmth on her sore muscles.

He stroked her hair, "So who's this fella you've taken up with? Does he treat you right?"

"Well, he can still have a temper, but he's learning how to keep things copasetic. The guy's a lot of fun to be around, even if he's as big a dork as ever. Oh, and he's amazing in the sack."

Bruce was chuckling, "Really?"

"I've never had a better lover, Doc."

"Does he make you happy?"

"I can't imagine being happier than I am now." She turned around and kissed Bruce on the mouth.

Bruce's arms slipped around her and he pulled her close so she was on top of him in the water. "I hear he can't be any happier either," said Bruce, stroking his hands down her back and caressing her toned glutes.

Natasha ran her fingers through the hair on his chest and enjoyed the feel of his hands on her skin. It occurred to her there was noticeably less gray in his curls than just a few months ago. Bruce was definitely less stressed than he had been, and this pleased her more than she wanted to admit. "We better get cleaned up or we'll be here all day, Doc."

"Yah, we'll be getting all pruney before long," Bruce admitted. He reached over the edge of the tub and grabbed the shampoo for her hair. She sat up and leaned forward to get her head under the faucet and wetted her hair down. Bruce applied the gel to the back of her head and worked it forward, rubbing some of the tension out of her scalp with his fingertips. She ducked under the faucet again to run fresh water to wash the soap out, and he helped her do the same with the conditioner. He had a towel waiting for her when she had washed out the last of it.

He kissed her shoulder before he pushed himself up to standing, letting the water drain off him. She motioned him over and scrubbed a bit of red-orange paint off his side. "Finger paint, the gift that keeps on giving," she laughed. He smiled down at her and stroked her cheek, "You have no idea!"

He toweled off before stepping out of the tub and dried off further. "Do you want to sit on the edge or we could use the bench in the shower?"

"I think I can manage the edge." He folded a fresh towel for her to sit on and placed it on the tub's broad rim. Then he turned his attention to working up the soap with the boar-bristle brush. By the time she was seated comfortably on the towel, he'd selected a blade that was broken in the right amount, and was prepared to soap the first leg. He tied a towel around his waist like an apron, and asked if she was comfortable.

"As comfortable as I'm going to get, Sweeney," she joked. Smiling, he shook his head and sat on the edge of the tub opposite from her and took her right foot in his lap. The soap was warm because he'd had the crock in his hands, which were radiating a bit of heat. He dabbed the ginger and white tea soap he'd picked for her on generously, but not too thick as he did a section at a time. Bruce ran the razor smoothly and gently in even strokes, flicking the spent soap off into the tub as he went. Natasha watched his steady, sure hands with fascination. He was all confidence and control, almost nimble in the way he lifted her leg so her foot rested on his shoulder as he leaned in to get the right angle for the back of her thigh. Soon he had wiped down her right leg and started soaping the first section on her left thigh. That's when he noticed the bruises along the outside of her leg. "That's where you landed after the explosion, isn't it?" Bruce had seen enough of these types of bruises to appreciate the amount of physical abuse Natasha could take and still get a job done, but the sight of them always brought him up short. He looked up and again noticed the necklace of bruises around her neck he'd caused and felt a little guilty.

"Yah, I rolled when I came out of the building," she said, "but that side got the impact when the gas tanks blew and threw me into a pile of dirt."

"'Tank _s_ ', that's plural. _Lovely._ Was it actually in Paraguay?" Bruce asked.

"No, that was just a better rhyme for the song, but it's not that far off geographically speaking."

"I know, it's not discussable, so you have poetic license to go for a better sounding name to rhyme, at least in my book," said Bruce as he carefully stroked over and around the contusions. He moved along steadily again, appreciating the curves of her long, pale legs, the freckles that peppered her lower thighs, and soon he was finished. He wiped down her leg, cleaned and dried the razor, and pulled the plug on the tub.

"So, what do you think? Did I miss anything?"

She ran her hands over both legs, "Wow, that is as smooth as the proverbial baby's butt. I think you managed not to liberate any blood either. I'm impressed. You're hired!"

He laughed, "I didn't know I was auditioning. I'd have used hot towels and lemon verbena or something." She started to crack up. "Any time you want, my queen, I'm yours to command," he said with a wink. She batted her eyes at him and smiled sweetly.

"Here, let me work on your feet," he offered. Bruce took up her right foot in his strong hands and applied pressure to the instep. After their months together, he knew where the tension collected, so he worked the arch and ball of her foot, pressing and relieving the knots. Natasha groaned with pleasure as he worked through her toes then started kissing up her leg. He stopped when he got to her thigh and took up her other foot. "You are so knotted up right now. Anything you want to talk about?"

"No, I'm starting to relax. It all just settles in my feet sometimes."

Fine, he'd get her to crack later. "I have an idea. Come on, and let's get dressed in something comfortable. It's snowing and we're not going out. I just made a big double batch of veggie chili yesterday that needs eating. We have a colorful therapy session video to watch. And I made brownies just the way you like them with Kahlua and hazel nuts…"

At that point, she finally cracked up. He'd done everything short of batting his big brown eyes at her. "Okay, okay, you have me sold, you Suzy homemaker. I have no doubt you planned this domestic seduction in detail, Doc."

"Good, as long as it works," he said, feeling quite pleased with himself, and he scooped her luminous naked body up in his arms. The lights came on as he carried her into their bedroom and laid her on the bed. She rolled onto her stomach and patted the bed beside her. "Hey, you, come here," she ordered him, so he complied with his usual conspiratorial good humor.

"What do you have in mind?"

"I'm going to go down on you."

He grimaced and bit his lower lip, "I'm not saying you couldn't manage to get me 'in the mood' in about two seconds, but it would be better to wait a little while, maybe till after we eat."

She looked at him quite incredulously, "Banner, you are maybe the only straight male I've ever met who would turn down what I just offered you."

"No, no, no! I'm not turning you down. Not that! Uh, what I'm talking about is, I'm feeling like things are going to get very Liminal very quickly."

She looked in Bruce's eyes, checked the arteries in his neck and his wrists, but didn't see evidence of the color shift. "Nothing yet here, Doc."

"I can feel him starting to show some interest. It would probably help if we ate. There are different kinds of hungers and needs, and sometimes needing calories fires up the connections between him and me. I'm just afraid mixing that with a healthy dose of lust will escalate things to a Grande pretty fast. _And_ I'm a bit concerned about the Big Guy's reaction to the bruises I've left around your neck."

"Oh," she said, "I hadn't thought about that. Look, I could just explain it to him. That's worked before when I've been injured. He's not happy, but he deals with it."

"Natasha, I'm not sure I want to go there with him just yet. Explaining love bites is new and potentially dangerous territory. He's been around close before when we're together, but that's not the same as being linked up in each other's head space while you and I are having sex." Bruce pressed his lips together in thought for a few seconds, "This is hard to explain and a little awkward, too. When he's been there before, when we're intimate, it's more like he's in the next room or at the threshold or maybe—I hate to put it this way—like a pet or a child sleeping by a fireplace, enjoying the warmth and feelings we're giving off, but it's not like he's actively participating. Does that make sense?"

"Yes, I think I understand what you're saying," she replied as she took his left hand in hers and stroked his forearm.

He smiled, looking a bit relieved, "I don't want this to sound like a peepshow or something lewd because it's not like that. In some ways he's still very innocent, and I'm reluctant to expose him to something he's not prepared to understand. It's like he's the part of me that never got past my… uh, our mother's death. He's never been completely in my head past kissing you, except maybe at the cottage, so I'm afraid he might think I'm hurting you. He's not seemed that interested in the past, but as he's making progress he's getting more curious about a lot of things. I've given him pretty free access to what I'm experiencing, but I've asked for privacy when it comes to intimacy with you."

"We knew there would be growing pains and you two would have to accommodate each other. I guess some things are moving along a little faster than others," she said with a wistful smile. "How is your negotiation for 'territory' coming?"

"We've reached a mutual understanding to give each other control over certain areas. Of course, Hulk wants to do the fighting and the smashing without me poking my nose in more than necessary while I asked him for privacy when you and I are being intimate. I may not be able to completely control both of our libidos, but when we keep mine sated, it seems to significantly dampen his. My goal is to keep both you and the Big Guy safe and separate from each other when lust and libido are involved."

"So you're the lover and he's the fighter?" she asked with a smirk.

"Yah, I guess you could say that." He caught himself rubbing his thumbs over his knuckles and made himself relax his hands. "Tell me, how do you think he sees you, Natasha? What do you think is going through his head?" Bruce asked and looked at her intently for her response.

"Wow, that's not an easy one to answer, especially since the liminal episodes have been happening more frequently. I know he cares for me and there is genuine affection there. Sometimes it's not that different from how he looks at Thor or sometimes Tony as comrades or teammates. When we do the lullaby, that's something completely different. When he starts to calm down, I can see more of you in his eyes and then his expressions. It's hard not to respond to that with more warmth and other feelings on my part since you are so close, just a few heartbeats away. He probably picks up on some of that."

Bruce nodded, "That would make sense. Go on."

She shook her head and continued stroking Bruce's arm. "Well, when I speak to him, I try to be consistently calm and friendly without sexualizing it. I don't want to infantilize him due to his communication difficulties. In some ways he's not at all a child. However, I think you're right about the innocence. I know you look at your past experiences suppressing him as shutting him away, but it also, for better or ill, sheltered him and spared him from having to deal with the day-to-day world. That's how he's retained his naiveté and how you've kept him protected from overloading."

Bruce nodded, "I don't disagree with that though I wouldn't put it exactly the same way. You and Tony both have unusual takes on who's protecting whom here. At the moment, I'm just worried that as the Big Guy gains knowledge about how an adult relationship works, he's going to want to be intimate with you, too. I'll admit that scares me shitless, and I've been trying to head it off before it starts. The last thing I want is to act out some Oedipal drama with you in the middle."

Natasha smiled, "I really don't think there will be a problem. I know the difference between the two of you, and he's not expressed a desire to go beyond something like this," she said as she continued to touch his arm. "I don't think he likes to be touched that often."

"Well, I've been there in the past with not liking physical contact, but I've gotten over some of it. It's part of the PTSD that's related to the abuse and also the AS sensory issues on top of that. Obviously, I've gotten past it with you, but I still don't like uninvited contact, especially from anyone who reminds me of my father."

"That's very understandable, Bruce, and believe me, I know you've come an amazingly long way."

"Only because you've been such a help, Nat. I don't know where I'd be without you." He swallowed hard, knowing his voice wasn't going to stay steady, "I don't want him to come between us."

"He's not. We're not going to let that happen. I love you both because you two are inseparable, but I don't love you both in the same way. Bruce, you're the guy I want, the one I need. You're the person who makes me happy and complete. I'm here to help the Big Guy, but you are _my_ guy, _my_ lover, _my_ friend, my moon, sun, and stars, Bruce. Through sunshine and rain and mud and finger paint, you're stuck with me, Doc. Bad cheesy poetry and all." They both laughed, and she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek and then his warm inviting lips.

They held each other and he pulled Natasha into his lap. She touched his face and then entwined her fingers in his hair. She kissed him again and this time he opened his mouth to her, kissing her deeply, concentrating his attention on the texture of her tongue and lips, her teeth gently biting his lower lip, and her left hand running through the hair on his chest, the thumb circling his right nipple.

Bruce could feel his libido stirring. Lust was a puny monster when compared to the Hulk, but to keep it under control, sometimes he had to listen to its demands as part of his needs, his biological imperative. Right now it wanted her to straddle him, and it wanted him to bury his manhood deeply into her and fill her up with his seed. He wanted her pregnant with his child. He wanted it clear that she was his, but he made himself stop. He couldn't blame these thoughts and desires on the Other Guy. No, this was his libido picking up on her pheromones and her physical presence. It was a primal voice that asserted he had needs and desires that demanded he meet them. Bruce had denied himself and his desires for so long that at moments like this, he thought he might be consumed and there would be nothing of him left. _I don't always get what I want._ However, if he did this, if he had sex, it took some of the pressure off the Other Guy. It was just like when he ate before a Code Green, so there was less of a chance that the Big Guy would want to eat and then ingest something inappropriate. They were working on the food part, but Bruce didn't want Hulk leaping from recognizing the basic food groups to acting upon his sexual desires. Trouble wasn't here yet, but he saw it looming on the horizon. Bruce pulled out of his heated kiss with Natasha and caught his breath.

"When will you let me put a ring on your finger, Natasha?"

"You know my history with that is awful," she said. "We talked about waiting a year. Let's stick with that for now."

"Okay," he said, obviously a little disappointed. "I'm not going to quit asking you though."

She laughed, "And that's one of the many reasons I love you, Bruce Banner."

He flopped back on the bed and lay there, and Natasha stretched out beside him. "Time to get clothes on?" he asked. She nodded, and they both got up and found themselves comfortable things to wear before drifting into the kitchen together.

End Notes: The idea that Bruce and Hulk are extra sensitive to smell (and other senses) is a combination of the Autism Spectrum sensitivities and something Joss Whedon mentions on the _Avengers_ commentary about the original Loki-Puny God scene. Apparently, early on it had been scripted that Loki pulled one of his multi-image illusions, but the Hulk knew which Loki was real because he could smell the right one. This was supposed to connect to Bruce's earlier line about being able to "smell crazy" on Loki.

I also know someone who has this level of sensitivity (no kidding!), which can be extremely cool or downright debilitating. One in four people are supertasters/sniffers, but some people go beyond that, which is where Bruce is. There are also links between people with these sensitivities and anxiety disorders, which also have links to ASD, and that brings us full circle.


	19. Chapter 19

19: Finger Paint and Candy

Bruce had set the chili in the crockpot to warm earlier, so they were soon sitting in front of the television and cuddling on the couch with their bowls of spicy chili and bottles of dark Negra Modelo as Friday prepared to start the video from the morning's therapy session.

"By the way," Bruce asked, "what in the heck have you been doing with Friday?"

"Hmm-Mmm?" she pretended to have a full mouth while she thought fast and reached for her bottle of beer on the coffee table. "What do you mean?"

"You've been pretty clever about it, but you've been adding a good bit to her programing since we've been moved in here."

"Yah, mostly working with her on her vocab and language usage."

"Okay, that explains about one tenth of it. You don't have to tell me, but please be careful. Part of what set off Ultron started in the language matrix. Tony thinks he got the issues resolved, but you never know. I'd just as soon not wake up with a sweet cyber Colleen in charge of the planet."

"And who's to say she's not already?" Natasha said with her own sweet smile as she took another draw from her bottle.

"All right, if you two are done talking about me and my plans for world domination, we can start the session review," said Friday saucily.

Bruce looked over at Natasha with raised eyebrows and a see-what-I-mean look. "You don't think Tony is going to notice that?" he asked.

"Friday, tone it down. You're scaring Dr. Banner," she said with an exasperated roll of her eyes.

"No problem. My apologies, Dr. Banner, for being so forward."

"It's okay, Friday. You don't have to do a Jarvis impersonation. Just don't scare Mr. Stark. He has a hard enough time sleeping. Go ahead and let the video roll."

Natasha stowed their emptied bowls on the coffee table and settled once more with Bruce who was in his favorite corner of the sectional. She leaned back with her head on his shoulder his arm draped over hers as the video started.

Bruce and three people from his therapy team were sitting on floor mats in the tower's secondary gymnasium, which they'd taken over for the Big Guy's sessions. The tall, white-haired Education Specialist Margaret "Maggie" Webb was leading the session and she got up and came closer to the camera and explained they'd be trying an activity to improve Hulk's tolerances for tactile sensory input, and if he were so inclined, they would combine it with some art therapy.

As she was speaking, in the background they could see Bruce was still sitting cross-legged on the mat wearing a version of his Avengers uniform "stretchy pants," minus the t-shirt he'd just pulled off and was folding. He then took a deep breath and closed his eyes, apparently meditating or centering himself. There were painters' tarps and drop cloths covering the back wall and floors, and one of the assistants was setting out large buckets of finger paint in a variety of colors on a table along the back wall.

"Okay, Bruce, whenever he's ready," said Maggie.

Bruce smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. He took a deep breath and his eyes immediately glowed green before he flinched and had to shut them. His arteries shown verdant against his skin as the coloring flowed out through his body and his frame began to expand. He arched his back and gripped his thighs. Pain was briefly apparent on his face as his brows thickened and jawline squared. His wrists and ankles, hands and feet swelled out of proportion, as did his musculature under the deepening jade hues of his skin. He curled inward holding himself around the middle till the last of the pain subsided. When he looked up, there was a lopsided grin on his face. "Maggie!" Hulk said in his rumbling bass, obviously glad to see her. He stayed seated and held both hands up in front of him and waited for her to walk over and touch her hands to his, giving him her permission. Once he had done this with the two remaining team members, he would be able to stand up and interact. "Where's Tasha?" he asked, looking around.

"She's on an assignment, so she won't be back home till this afternoon."

"Oh," he said. "Later?"

"Yes, she'll be back home later today."

["He always asks for you if you're not there," Bruce whispered in Natasha's ear. He couldn't see the pleased smile and warm look settle across her features, but he knew it was there.]

The therapy team members were following a procedure they had developed over the summer, which was based on a combination of Temple Grandin's theories involving large animal psychology, established behavioral psychology principles, and applied developmental education best practices. At their core, the sessions were built upon reinforced patterns of predictability, comfort, and trust, created through forming relationships, but it was still quite dangerous and potentially lethal. The whole team had volunteered knowing it was a high-risk situation and had taken on Bruce's case knowing the dangers were unforgivingly real. Whether it was for altruistic or professional reasons or just out of curiosity or ego, they had all willingly and enthusiastically agreed to be there.

Natasha's absence obviously disappointed Hulk, but he seemed satisfied with the explanation and didn't dwell on it. After a pause, he looked over at the other therapists and grinned again. "Hi, Jonas. Hi, Cecily," he rumbled amiably and held up his hands, waiting for them to touch and give the final permissions to move.

["I've been really impressed with how consistently he's following safety protocols," Bruce explained to Natasha. "They updated them recently because of his increased verbal skills. He now gives his permission to the therapy team verbally when he addresses them by name. He still has to wait for them to touch his hand before he can move and interact." Natasha nodded in understanding.]

"All right there, Big Guy," said a younger man with a British accent. He was in his thirties, tall, and of mixed Anglo and African descent. He gave Hulk a double high-five. Jonas Magoro was the Behavioral Therapist on the team and had trained with Dr. Baron-Cohen and was affiliated with the Autism Research Center. In fact, Jonas had relocated just to work with the team.

"Hello, Big Guy," chimed in Cecily Brookfield, an average-looking, middle aged woman with her hair cut in a short blond bob. She calmly walked over and touched Hulk's hands with hers. She was the team's psychologist who also worked with Bruce as a counselor and psychotherapist. She'd been recommended in the S.H.I.E.L.D. dossier and had worked with several powered individuals and people with special abilities and complex problems. Her calm, average-looking exterior masked an exceptionally sharp and intuitive mind. She'd started out as an educator but had changed careers along the way specifically to work with difficult cases, "enhanced" or otherwise.

Now that he could get up and move about, Maggie directed Hulk's attention over to a table next to a wall and the group showed him different objects with a variety of textures and explained what they were and described what they felt like before touching them and testing them on different parts of their skin. The objects ranged from sandpaper to Velcro, fake fur, satin, and feathers. The Big Guy joined right in, gently touching and letting the team members try the different objects on the back of his hand. He copied the others and stroked the feathers, satin, and fur on his cheek. Maggie had him pronounce the objects' names and use words that described how they felt. She asked him what felt most like the fur and he laughed and touched his hairy chest and invited the others to compare. He also matched up the sandpaper with his beard stubble without being asked. He eyed Jonas and asked to touch his cheek and hair to compare the textures. (Neither matched.) He thought Cecily's silky hair was like the satin, but Maggie's curly white hair was not.

[Natasha leaned a bit to the side and looked over her shoulder at Bruce to see how he was reacting. He smiled at her and hugged her a little closer. "Just watch," he whispered. "Things are going to get a lot more… Technicolored."]

Finally, they opened up the buckets of finger paint and the team covered up in disposable plastic rain gear. The Big Guy tested the makeshift sheeting they had for him and shook his head, "No thanks. Too noisy." He seemed to tolerate the sound of the others' covers though. There was a large strip of butcher paper on the floor and another on the wall. Maggie plunged her hands into the paints and showed him how to make geometric shapes on the paper attached to the wall. She also wrote the words for the shapes and colors on the paper beside them. Hulk looked at what she was doing with interest, but when she asked if he wanted to put his hands in the bright goo, he looked quite skeptical and rubbed his hands and fingers together. Jonas and Cecily put their hands in and joined Maggie, adding to the peer pressure. The big guy finally looked at the paints and tested the orange with his right index finger. "Cold" he said and rubber the paint between his fingers. "Slick," he said. He reached back in for more paint and cupped some in his palm and moved to the paper on the floor. Someone adjusted the camera for a better angle to watch him work. He drew a circle and filled it in with the orange. "Maggie," he called to get her attention. She came over and he pointed at the rough circle, "Sun. Write 'Sun', please."

"I'll spell it for you, and you can write it," she said. "'S' comes first." He took a breath and focused, using his first two fingers to make a recognizable letter. "Next comes 'U'." He got more paint on his fingers and made a good attempt then retraced it more clearly. "Good," she said, "last comes the 'N'."

He studied the paper and made two parallel lines, but he then seemed uncertain of the last stroke. He looked at Maggie, "Top to bottom?"

"Right," she said with a smile, and he completed the last angled stroke. Maggie smiled proudly at him, "S-U-N spells sun. Very good, my dear! Now, can you draw me something that makes you happy?"

He chuckled and returned to the paints. Hulk clearly had something in mind. He used his left hand to scoop up red and got another dab of orange. He used his right hand to mix the two and worked them onto a different section of the paper then looked around, "Towel?" Jonas brought over a roll of paper towels and pulled him off several. "Thanks, Jonas," Hulk offered and cleaned most of the colors off his hands and laid the towels aside. He then looked through the paint colors and found the black. This time he didn't hesitate to stick his hands in and took both handfuls back to the paper and made a reasonable human figure. Next to it in black he wrote "NAT" without needing help from Maggie. ["That's you," whispered Bruce to Natasha. "Not bad," she conceded. "Notice he picked your easiest nickname to write, even though it's not what he calls you," Bruce noted. "That's a pretty impressive use of critical thinking skills."] Hulk then used the paper towels to wipe his hands off again. He next scooped up handfuls of yellow and green and smeared the green below the figure and dabbed the yellow randomly across the green. He laughed and the others came over to look. Everyone's eyebrows went up when they saw the clearly scrawled name.

"Nice job, pal!" said Jonas. "Natasha should be impressed."

"Oh, you did flowers and grass, too, didn't you?" asked Cecily.

"Yes," Hulk said with a satisfied grin.

"Give me five, Big Guy," said Jonas and without thinking smacked his paint-covered hand against Hulk's. Colors splattered everywhere. Jonas had an oh-crap look on his face until Hulk laughed, "Goofball Jonas." He then flicked what was left on his hand in the Behavior Therapist's general direction.

Maggie got a face full of blue and yellow and laughed. She and Cecily did their own high-five and sent pink and purple flying. The big guy laughed and shook the paint off his other hand, too. That led to some paint being thrown and someone covering the camera so the lens wouldn't get ruined. When it was safe enough to uncover the lens, they were all a laughing heap of plastic and paint sliding on the floor along with at least one staff member. Luckily, Hulk was on the bottom. Maggie had purple in her hair and the Big Guy had yellow on one side and red on the other. ["Thank God," murmured Bruce under his breath. I really don't like it when they get that physical.]

"You're in Gryffindor, Big Guy," said Jonas who was looking mostly blue splattered.

"Stark," Hulk said, looking at his arms and grinning.

"Well," said Maggie, "I believe we have met our goals and then some, especially the sensory issues, and we were able to work on vocabulary and writing skills, too. We'll get together and have our evaluation to you in a couple of days. Big Guy, it's time to say goodbye, dear."

Hulk held up his hand and each of them touched it and said their farewells. He was already sitting down, so Hulk hugged his knees and laid his head on his forearms. He exhaled and began to shudder, moaning softly to himself and rocking as he contracted back into Bruce's form. His eyes were back to brown and the green was receding through his veins as Bruce registered the colorful state of the gym and the therapy team. "Do I dare ask how things went?" he asked with a bit of a rasp to his voice.

"Swimmingly," Maggie said, giving him a hand up, "Hulk did especially well today. I think you'll be impressed when you see the video." Bruce, covered thickly in bright colors that had caked double as he shrank, walked over to the mat and studied the painting on the floor with his arms crossed over his middle as he chewed on the one clean spot on his thumb. Jonas and Cecily, who had taken off their paint-splattered raingear, walked over and they both started talking to Bruce just as the camera shut off.

"Please tell me we don't have to go down there and clean that up," Natasha said with a groan and her wrist pressed dramatically to her forehead.

"Oh, no," laughed Bruce, "the crew had most of it done before I left the gym. Maggie still had purple hair when she left for home, and I had to shower off down in the locker room because I was such a thick-caked mess. Thank God the pants are dark colored because they were so saturated I had paint the whole way down from my head to the bottom of my feet after I peeled them off."

"All joking aside, I'm serious, Bruce, that was pretty amazing. I can't believe how far he's come since the last time I could be here for a session. God, though, it still makes me nervous, especially when they are physically interacting with him, but the structure and protocols seem to be working."

"It makes me nervous, too," he admitted as he ran a hand through his hair and scratched at the back of his head. "It's taken everyone months of planning and lots of patience to work up to this level, and Maggie is very strict about the rules. She spoke to Jerry, the assistant that got in the middle of the paint pile, afterward to make sure he knew not to get in the middle again or he wouldn't be coming back. There is a lot of comfort in structure and consistency for the Big Guy, so it doesn't surprise me that the he has taken to it. He knows as long as he's calm, they'll work with him, but he has to keep himself under control. I'm afraid every time I wake up that something will have happened and someone will be injured, but so far it's working. I also think part of why he's progressing so quickly is that he's making up lost ground. The intelligence has always been there—it's just been bottled up," Bruce concluded with a bit of guilt creeping into his voice and expression.

Natasha ran her fingers through his hair, pushing a few unruly curls back out of Bruce's eyes, "You've said he can access your knowledge and vocabulary before, right? It's not like you've kept him completely locked down."

"Yah, he's not starting at square one, but even now that we're on better terms, it takes some deliberate effort on his part, sort of like pulling out a dictionary or doing a Google search through my brain. That sounds weird, but I can't think of a better comparison. The barriers have been up so long, we're not wired for automatically sharing everything or doing it fluidly. Frankly, that may be just as well," Bruce mused.

"No kidding. I'd think it would be pretty chaotic if you didn't each have your own headspace. Something else I wanted to ask about is does Maggie have him honest to God reading already? It seems like he is starting to get the basics, even though that wasn't exactly what they were doing today."

"They're working on some very basic things, but they don't want to rush because of the verbal communication being behind. He's making the connection between symbols and sounds, but he struggles with some abstract concepts. The speech therapist wasn't scheduled to be there this session, but they've been working together as well."

"His comprehension is really good though."

"That's what he's always been able to manage well. Now, if we could just get him talking more to get some feedback," Bruce mused.

"You better watch it, you won't be able to shut him up," she said with her usual smirk.

"Too late, the genie is already out of that bottle," he teased.

"I still can't get over how calm and under control he is. Are you ever there with him in the same headspace at all?" Natasha asked.

Bruce shook his head, "No, he really needs that time to himself if he's going to learn how to regulate his emotions and develop coping strategies. I'm available if he needs me; otherwise, it's pretty much psychic naptime for me until he hands control back over."

"How is he handling overall control issues? Does he ever resist you about giving up control and transitioning back when the session is over?" she asked.

"Being completely in control is still pretty exhausting work for him, especially when it's not rage-driven, so the Big Guy has generally had enough after a few hours in the driver's seat. The only time he has really insisted on staying in control was when we left Sokovia. I'm still not entirely sure what his motivations were and why he chose to do it that way."

"It's okay, Bruce. I know it's complicated." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, while he stroked a hand on her thigh.

"I love you," he said.

"I know," she said, squeezing his hand.

They both stood and gathered up the dirty dishes and took them to the kitchen sink. Bruce rinsed the bowls and plates off before adding them to the dishwasher. As he turned around, Natasha grabbed him around the waist and pulled him close. "Your rain check is up, Doc."

"Where do you want me?" he asked with a knowing grin. He was feeling much more like himself.

"In my mouth," she said, comically winking at him.

He laughed, "Oh, right here in the kitchen?"

"Go grab a towel out of the dryer and meet me on the couch," she said. Natasha found the squeeze bottle of honey and a couple of other things then returned to the living room. Bruce handed her a large bath towel warm from the dryer, and she laid it on the leather couch to keep things under control after viewing the finger paint orgy. She moved the coffee table back to make enough room.

"Friday, could you put on _Seduction Mix Two_?" Bruce looked like he was trying not to laugh. "What?" she asked.

"How many _Seduction Mixes_ do you have?" he queried as Marvin Gaye's clear voice came through the sound system singing "Let's Get It On."

"Three and half. Come here," she said, and Bruce obliged, standing in front of her. He had to admit, Natasha was beyond sexy when she took charge. She pulled him close and kissed him on the mouth, exploring him gently, but insistantly with her tongue. He touched her face with his hands, cupping her cheek and jawline and then running his fingers through her auburn locks. Natasha reached around him and massaged his toned butt cheeks, pulling him tightly to her. She pressed her hips into his, and Bruce's moan was almost a growl. Natasha pulled away; they were both starting to heat up very quickly.

"Take off your shirt, Bruce," Natasha ordered. He pulled the sweatshirt off over his head. "I'm glad you've been sticking with your workout," she said, enjoying the view as he blushed, looking as adorable and sexy as ever. She ran her hands through his chest hair and felt the definition of the muscles beneath. She paused, stroking his nipples with her thumbnails till they hardened. She slowly ran her hands down his sides, following the lines of his musculature down under his waistband.

He started taking deeper breaths, "You're going to torture me, aren't you?"

Natasha smiled, "Would you like that?" He smiled back at her, but didn't commit. "Not for too long then, Lover." She wasn't going to push him too far since not using the condom was already way outside his comfort zone. Natasha stepped back and met his eyes before leaning in to suck on one of his nipples and then the other. Bruce groaned and his knees felt a little weak. She then turned her attentions to kissing him on the neck. He breathed raggedly and pulled her close in an embrace. "You're mine, Bruce," she whispered in his ear.

"Yes, I'm yours, Natasha, heart and soul," he said hoarsely. "Please, I want you to mark me," Bruce whispered. She picked the spot in the hollow of his neck on the left side to circle with her tongue, working him with her lips before finally sucking hard. Bruce gasped, "Oh, God. Oh, Nat."

She bit into his neck enough to know she would leave a mark and then placed a small kiss on top of the darkening spot and whispered, "Oh, you're marked all right, Lover," and leaned back to look at him, running her thumb over the love bite, enjoying her handiwork and the way he was starting to tremble and hum beneath her hands.

Natasha then pulled Bruce over to stand in front of the couch. She sat on the edge of the coffee table and yanked down his sweatpants. He was already getting hard. She rubbed her face against his boxers and he groaned. Now she understood what he was saying about pheromones because he smelled like sex to her: musk and salt and milky sweetness. "I'm going to lick you and suck you like candy, Bruce." She pulled his underwear down and his erection was ready and willing to cooperate. She helped him step out of his clothing and discarded it. Then Natasha patted the towel for him to sit in front of her on the couch, leaning him back so he could watch because she knew he liked that.

"Remember," he said, "the one thing I ask is that you don't swallow."

"Not a problem," she said holding up the box of tissues and the wastebasket close at hand.

"Thank you," he said, relief apparent in his voice.

She used his phone to do a quick scan and showed him the results. "Boring as ever," she said with a raised eyebrow.

He shrugged and grinned back at her, "Science!"

Then Natasha revealed the bottle of honey she'd copped from the pantry and applied a small dollop on her index finger. She brought it up to his lips and he licked it. "Suck it," she said, and he did as she brought her finger in and out of his mouth. "Is this how you want me to do you?" He nodded as he sucked her finger, swirling his tongue around it and licking up and down her digit. "Okay, I think I know what you'll like." She took her finger out of his mouth, leaned forward, and kissed him, probing deeply with her tongue before pulling back. "Ah, I couldn't taste it. I guess I'll have to taste you." She took the honey and dribbled a line down his stomach. "Oops, I guess I'll have to start there." She set the honey on the table and lowered herself down between his thighs, gripping and massaging his muscular legs. She carelessly "on purpose" let her hair sweep and brush against his erection and Bruce breathed in sharply, grabbing the towel on both sides. She blew lightly across his stomach and then started to lick her way across and down the "treasure trail" of hair and honey between his abs and below. He squirmed and groaned, and she smiled up at him as she finished licking up the trail. His dick had been rubbing the back of her head while she did this, and the silken feel of her hair was driving him crazy. She picked up the honey again and dribbled it on his shaft, making sure to circle the purpling head before returning the bottle to the table. She blew on his shaft and he shivered. "Steady, Doc." She gently gripped the base of his penis and licked with the tip of her tongue up and down his shaft then swirled her tongue over the engorged head as she gripped him more firmly. He was whimpering and wanting to thrust, so she took the tip into her mouth and began to suck and work him with her hand.

"Oh, Natasha," he groaned, wanting to grab her head and settling for gripping her shoulder and holding her hair back.

She took him in deep, bobbing her head and using her tongue. She could taste the saltiness of his pre-come and knew he was already getting close to exploding in her mouth.

"Stop, please stop!" he sobbed, so she backed off wondering what was the matter. His eyes were brown, but the irises were huge and dark. He has shaking. It took a few deep breaths before he was back under control. "I'm sorry. Please, I just have to fuck you," Bruce said. "I know I'm being selfish, but I need to fuck you now."

"That's not a problem, Lover, and for the record, it's not selfish to ask for what you need." Without hesitation, she stood up and pulled her sweats and panties off in one smooth motion.

"Come here please," Bruce said, standing and moving behind the couch. "Let's try something different." He grasped her hips and guided her, so she could bend over the back of the leather sectional and support her weight on her elbows. The position also fully exposed her ass to him. After making sure she was comfortably situated, he asked, "Are you okay with a little sting?"

"Yes, I'm up for that, Bruce. Surprise me with what you want to do."

"Okay," he said, dropping his voice to a growl, "I'm going to screw you from behind, and I'm going to pump you so full." He reached between her legs and stroked gently with his fingers, making sure she was good and wet before guiding his still-hard cock into her. She gasped at the unusualness of his angle and the feel of skin on skin. "Are you ready for me to fuck you good and deep?" he asked breathing huskily.

"Please, fuck me, Bruce. You feel so good at this angle. Please just fuck me now," she moaned.

He smacked her ass with the flat of his hand just to make it sting a bit and then did the same to himself, which made her jump more than the actual contact with her own body. She threw a concerned look back over her shoulder at him. "That's all," he reassured, "Don't worry. I won't do it again. I just needed to feel it, too. I wanted both of us to feel the sting, the heat." He thrust into her, leaning them both slightly more forward. The position was different, so now he could reach around her to access her mons. He cupped her mound firmly with his right hand and began to gently finger her clitoris.

"Talk dirty to me, Bruce" Natasha entreated him. "Tell me what you're going to do to me, Lover."

"Oh, sweet, beautiful girl, I'm going to have you come for me, but not until I've had my way with you. You're going to come for Daddy. I'm going to work you back and forth. Loosen you up and tighten you up and do it all again. You're going to know you've been played like an instrument, and you'll know I'm the one who has loved you and fucked you." He rubbed her clit, which tightened her vaginal walls and he slowly thrust twice to loosen her up then rubbed again and thrust twice again. Bruce had imagined doing this a few days ago and hoped she'd like it. He set a torturously steady rhythm that soon brought her to the edge between one sensation and another, drawing her vaginal walls down tight as he touched her most sensitive spot and pushing his eager cock into her and demanding room, making her go slack then doing it over again and again.

"Oh, my God, what are you doing to me, Bruce? Oh, fuck! Don't stop! Just don't stop," she begged.

"You like this? My girl likes this way of doing it? Good, because I'm going to keep it up till you can't relax. Till all you are is tight and on the edge. You're so close to it. You know nobody can hear us. I want you to scream. Let it out. We're all alone. It's okay. I know you want to. You're just as wound up as I am. Maybe even more than I am. We're both so freaking tense and humming. I know you feel it, too." He hardly had to touch her again and she clenched up hard and stayed tight as he kept firmly driving his cock into her and touching her. "Come for me, Natasha! Daddy wants you to come."

"Bruce! Oh, God, Bruce!" she screamed as she came hard, pounding a fist into the cushions as her back arched. "Oh, Bruce!" she sobbed as she shook. He wasn't kidding that she was wound tight.

He thrust once, twice more, and finally let go. He came and came deep inside her, "Natasha! I love you! You're mine! All mine!" He emptied himself into her until he almost collapsed and pinned her to the couch. Not having the condom on seemed to have undammed a flood. He knew he hadn't gone green, but something inside him turned from growling savagely to purring with satisfaction. He leaned a little further over her and kissed the back of her neck softly and trailed gentle kisses along her spine.

She lay under him quietly shuddering. His right hand was still on her clit so he rubbed her tenderly, and she surprised him with another trembling wave that took her all over again. "Ohhh shit, oh shit!" she moaned, astounding him as she orgasmed again with gentle intensity.

He cautiously withdrew his hand. "Are you okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"Why?" she asked, hardly able to move or think a coherent thought. "That was… I don't know how, but you made me come all over again. I've never done that before."

"I was afraid I hurt you."

"God, no. I'm fine, Bruce. More than fine. I may be sore and chafed tomorrow, but I'm perfectly okay. We're going to have to do this angle and what you were doing again." She looked back over her shoulder at him, "Maybe I'll just stay here for the rest of the afternoon, hanging out on the back of the couch basking in the afterglow." They both started to laugh.

"I'd stay with you like this, but I'm kind of covered in honey and other, uh, substances, and I don't want to squash you." He kissed her on the back again, more certainly, and slipped his arms carefully around her and hugged her for a few more sweet minutes before finally withdrawing and stepping back. He helped pull her hips back over the top of the couch and gave her a hand to help her up to stand on her feet. "We are one big, sticky mess," he said, "again," and they both giggled looking at each other. "This is going to make _four_ cleanups in one day. I think that's a record." He grabbed the towel off the couch and wrapped it around her because his semen had gone to liquid, just to make everything messier it seemed. At least something worked the way it was supposed to work, even if he was certain of his sterility. No mater what she had joked about earlier, he knew he'd never father children. Natasha snuggled into his arms and he hugged her, looking down into her hazel-green eyes and smiling contentedly.

"I don't know how you do it, Bruce," she said cuddling close. "You've made me nothing but happy in every way I've asked and more. Never forget this, Doc, I love you and you're all mine, too."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, my love," he said stroking her cheek with his fingers. "Which will it be then, shower, bath, or do we need to use the a power washer down in the garage?"

"Tempting as the power washer may be, let's try the shower first," Natasha said unable to keep a straight face.

"As you wish," Bruce replied before he picked her up and carried her there, laughing together the whole way.


	20. Chapter 20

20: Your Place in the World

Pepper was beaming when she slipped back into the waiting room. "Check your texts," she said knowingly as she settled back into her seat beside Natasha.

Natasha pulled out her phone just in time for a vibration to announce a message from Clint had just arrived: _Eyes on ur guy_.

"Clint's there?" she mouthed at Pepper who grinned and nodded.

Natasha texted back: _Thnx!_

He replied: _Plane just landed. Txt u later_.

"I knew you'd be relieved," said Pepper.

"Yah, I really am," Natasha said with a sigh. It meant a great deal to her that Clint had taken time away from his family and the farm to help with security. She knew he wouldn't let anyone make a move against Bruce unless they came through him.

A nurse opened a door on their side of the waiting room. "Ms. Rushman," the woman in brightly colored scrubs called.

"I can hold your coat or I can go in with you," offered Pepper.

Natasha bit her lower lip, "Would you go with me, please?" She hadn't planned on asking, but now she really wanted a friend there. "Just no pictures or texts or calls until I say it's okay."

"No problem," said Pepper, "I promise I will behave," and they both followed the nurse behind the doors. Natasha didn't believe that for a second, but she'd give Pepper a reprieve for the moment.

In short order, Annemarie the RN had taken Natasha's weight, height, temperature, and blood pressure readings. The nurse soon had Pepper settled in an examination room with their gear and sent Natasha down a short hall to give a urine sample and empty her bladder before she came back to the room and got to wear a cute little open-back number that Pepper had to help her get into properly. After another short wait, there was a knock at the door and a tall, dark-skinned woman with short graying hair entered the exam room.

"Hi," she said with a big smile, shaking hands with Natasha and then greeting Pepper. "I'm Dr. Vining. It's an honor to meet you, 'Ms. Rushman.' I'm glad we were able to get you in today. I was just reviewing your medical history. I know the symptoms are a little unsettling, considering your past condition, but I think we can eliminate a few things today and get you scheduled for whatever tests you might need to get the answers." Natasha nodded, but was too nervous to say anything. "Well, I won't keep you in suspense, your pregnancy test came back positive. I hope that's good news."

Pepper gave an excited squeak and hugged Natasha who was somewhere between shock, denial, and finally entertaining the possibility she wasn't sterile. "You, you're sure about this?" she stammered around Pepper's mini-celebration.

"Well, it's what the test has indicated. It detects human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG, which is a hormone released within six to twelve days of when the fertilized egg implants in your uterus. You are at least five weeks along, but going by the date of your light spotty period on Jan. 7th, which is probably when the egg implanted, I'm guessing about four weeks before that, around Dec. 9th to 12th, is when the conception occurred."

"It's probably Dec. 10th because that's when we had a condom break and then had unprotected sex later. Wow, this is for real?"

"Yes, it is and getting for realer all the time," said the doctor with a bemused smile.

"Aren't you happy, Natasha?" asked Pepper as she finally released her grip on her friend.

"Of course I'm happy, but there's a lot of shock and surprise mixed into it. Dr. Vining, how is this possible if I've been sterilized?"

"Well, that's something we'll need to find out. I've been able to get you scheduled for a comprehensive transabdominal and 3D ultrasounds on Saturday, but today we can do a transvaginal ultrasound and the physical exam, so we'll be able see the fetus and check him or her out. The next time I want to try and find out what type of tubal ligation procedure you have had and see if we need to do any follow-up procedures to make sure you both stay healthy."

Natasha swallowed hard, "Wow, okay. Let's do this then."

Pepper asked, "She's not far enough along to be able to find out if it's a boy or a girl, right?"

"Probably not, but give it a couple of weeks if the fetus cooperates," replied Dr. Vining. "What we want to check for today is how many fetuses there are, the position, and whether there are 'soft' markers for chromosomal abnormalities, such as an increased fetal nuchal translucency at the back of the neck that might indicate a case of Down syndrome."

The nurse and a tech came in with the equipment and the doctor gently positioned Natasha in the exam stirrups. It wasn't exactly Natasha's idea of a good time, but at least Dr. Vining was thoughtful enough to warm things up before all the poking and prodding and pressing started. She also told her exactly what she was going to do and why. Even on a good day Natasha avoided this sort of thing, but at least there would be some payoff of information this time.

"Judging by the scars on your abdomen and what I can feel now, Natasha, I'm certain it was a tubal ligation, and I would put odds on there being at least one clamp or tie that has become dislodged. Let me ask a few questions, do you and Bruce enjoy a healthy sex life?"

"Yes, I think so."

"How often a week do you have sex?"

"Usually, every other day, but sometimes a bit more often if we've been away from each other or we're in the mood."

Pepper almost choked on the bottled water she was swallowing.

"Wow, you really are still newlyweds in that sense," the doctor said with a good-humored chuckle. "Take deep breaths, Pepper. It's not that unusual," she said to their mutual friend before returning her attention back to Natasha. "Every other day is what I recommend for people who are trying to get pregnant."

"I probably ought to explain that part of Bruce's condition leaves him with an above average libido, so being intimate helps him keep himself 'regulated.' I guess you could say it's therapeutic."

"That wouldn't surprise me, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, Natasha," reassured Dr. Vining. "You said you had a broken condom two months back. Does that happen very often?"

"Maybe three times in the past seven months. I should tell you we're using what Bruce and Tony call 'Industrial Hazmat-Grade' condoms, which they keep upgrading, that are meant to protect me from any radiation or toxicity that might be in Bruce's system. We take readings before and after as part of the Agreements' required research study, and Bruce has never been above a background level of radiation. That's why we weren't too worried when it broke this last time; anyway, we always use a radiation neutralizing product Bruce formulated."

"Well, that's some impressive science your guys have worked up," Dr. Vining said while shaking her head with a touch of amusement. "Part of the reason I'm asking these questions (aside from seeing Pepper turn bright red) is that frequency and intensity of coitus can dislodge plugs and the clamps or ties used in tubal ligation, especially if they've been there a number of years."

"Not to give Pepper any nightmares," Natasha said with a glace over her shoulder, "but we do have pretty vigorous sex with the occasional 'rough' session."

"That could be enough to do it," Dr. Vining said.

Natasha shook her head; she was still trying to understand how a pregnancy could possibly happen to the two of them. "But, Dr. Vining, even if my sudden onset of fertility is explainable, we've always thought it was a forgone conclusion that Bruce's exposure to the radiation made his sterility permanent—that's it, period."

"That I can't explain without seeing some test results and doing a physical exam. Has he been tested for fertility within the past year?" Dr. Vining inquired as she changed out her gloves for a fresh set and positioned Natasha for the ultrasound.

"Not that I know of," said Natasha.

"Well, it was gamma radiation he was exposed to, right?" Natasha and Pepper both nodded. "I'm just speculating, but that type of exposure might have slightly different effects on biology than radiation from uranium, strontium, or other materials. It's not something I've studied, but exposure to gamma radiation is rare and the levels he was exposed to were unprecedented. That he survived at all is nothing short of miraculous, and I almost never use that word. You can be sure I'll be looking specifically for any abnormalities in the fetus that might be related to your partner's condition, but he will have to come in himself if we're going to get a complete picture and a more conclusive answer."

"Thank you," said Natasha.

"It looks like Kit here has everything ready for the ultra sound. Shall we proceed?"

"I'm ready."

"Me, too," joked Pepper.

"No pictures, Pepper!" Natasha ordered with a glance over her shoulder. "That reminds me, Dr. Vining, I need to talk to you about security procedures for your data and records."

"State of the art, thanks to the lady behind you."

"Relax," said Pepper, "now you know how I can grab the last-minute cancelation spots."

"I'll look at it anyway."

"Geeze! Grace, do you see what I mean?" Pepper asked in mock frustration. "Nat, you are two levels above 'Control Freak'!"

"You know that's why I'm still alive and in one piece, Pep. One day, mark my words, you will thank me for it." Natasha was only slightly exaggerating. She couldn't see Pepper roll her eyes, but she knew exactly what her friend was doing.

"Okay, ladies, it's show time—selfies with the fetus or not."

Soon, Dr. Vining was examining the images on the monitor as Kit the tech took readings from every slightly uncomfortable angle Natasha thought possible. Finally, after reviewing the collected video and measurements, the doctor smiled and turned the monitor so they could see the picture. Pepper had moved up beside Natasha and grabbed her left hand. "You have a little bouncing baby Banner in there," said the doctor. Natasha was surprised to see the picture was in color and even more surprised by how easy it was to see the baby squirm and wiggle about even if she hadn't felt it move yet herself. That's when it hit her: _This was real_. It wasn't cancer. It wasn't food poisoning. It wasn't just a little daydream after being with the Barton children. This was real. _The baby was real._ And the baby belonged to her and Bruce. _Take back your place in the world._ She realized Pepper was now holding her, and somebody was crying and it wasn't Pepper.

Natasha felt as if she was floating above the scene watching Pepper hold her as she came apart. The tech and the nurse averted their gazes respectfully while the doctor smiled because they'd seen all of this before. The tiny baby on the screen continued to move its easily identifiable limbs. Natasha took deep gulping breaths of air and held onto Pepper. _Some things are more important than the mission._ "It's real. This is real," Natasha told herself out loud. _SO, make THIS the mission_. "I'm not dreaming this."

"Of course it's real," said Pepper, using a tissue to try and wipe away some of her friend's tears.

Suddenly, Natasha couldn't help herself; she started to laugh because it was all so unbelievably absurd. "Here, give me those," she said, taking the box of tissues from Pepper. "God, this is embarrassing. I will really kill you if you take any pictures."

"I didn't have a free hand, or I might have tried to sneak one," laughed Pepper.

In a few minutes, Natasha had herself mostly back together, and Dr. Vining explained what was important in the images and how they used the measurements and other information to determine the baby was between eleven to twelve weeks old. They froze the image to count the ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes, but they hadn't gotten a good angle to see what the sex of the baby might be. "It would be a little early to tell anyway," the doctor said. Kit printed out several pictures for Natasha to take with her and she sent those along with a short video clip of the wriggling baby via an encrypted email to her.

The other good news included that there were no signs of abnormalities or Down syndrome markers or signs of other defects. The doctor and tech were also able to tell that it was Natasha's left fallopian tube that was intact and functioning, but there appeared to be a clamp of some kind still shutting down the tube on her right side. "We'll be able to use the 3D sonogram during your Saturday appointment to get a better look and determine if we need to take any action. Do you have any questions?"

"You're sure the baby is okay, that it's developing normally?" Natasha asked.

"There is never any 100% guarantee at this point, but all indications are your baby is healthy and developing normally. She or he has a strong heart and the cranium is developing correctly and the brain development is normal. The palate looks good. The spinal column appears to be well-formed, and the internal organs are in place and developing on schedule. You've seen what a healthy little squirmmer you have. It won't be that much longer till you can feel those kicks. Very soon you're going to be showing, too."

"Oh, wow, we are at negative zero when it comes to preparing for this. We've done absolutely nothing about clothing and equipment and all that stuff," Natasha realized.

"Don't worry," said Pepper, "That's something we can get started on this morning. We've still got plenty of time, but don't you want to tell Bruce first?"

"I was going to wait till we Skyped this evening, but now I don't know. This is going to really distract him, and he can't come back home early, too much is riding on this trip."

"Well, ladies," said Dr. Vining, "Since that one is not my call, I'll let Annemarie show you to the front desk after you're dressed. I do believe you get a starter bag with some things you might be able to use. I will see you on Saturday, Natasha. Congratulations to you and Dr. Banner!"

Natasha and Pepper thanked everyone. With that, the doctor and Kit with the extra equipment in tow left. Annemarie gave her some extra wipes to clean up and said she'd be back in a few minutes, so Natasha could put herself together and get her clothes back on.

"Oh, Pepper, I don't know!" Natasha said in exasperation once the door was closed. "I was going to wait, but I really want to talk to him now. We at least need to get someplace private. God, this whole building could be full of bugs and surveillance equipment to highjack."

"Happy will be downstairs waiting for us in the newly updated Caddy. That thing is a rolling fortress now with its own firewalled hotspot and higher grade armor," Pepper said with another eye roll for good measure.

"I didn't think that tank was going to be done for another month," Natasha said with a skeptical look.

"When Tony realized we womenfolk would be holding down the fort while the boys are in Cincinnati, he put extra people on it. It sure made Happy's month," Pepper said lightening up a bit.

Natasha grinned at the thought of the big chauffer buffing the black Fleetwood Seventy-Five with loving caresses. "Where was he this morning?"

"Picking the behemoth up. That's why we got stuck with the new guy earlier."

"Sean did fine. Okay, I'm ready."

Pepper opened the door and Annemarie appeared with two complimentary diaper bags courtesy of competing baby formula manufactures. "Here, I'll take them," said Pepper. "If you don't want them, you can donate them."

"I think I want to breastfeed anyway," Natasha mused. "I'm going to have to talk to Laura and take notes."

They were soon done with the paperwork, scheduling, and free samples of everything from vitamins to breast creams, so they headed out through the waiting room. Natasha was surprised to see the older 40-ish couple was still there with their backs to her. She made a point of not looking in their direction because she and Bruce had now crossed over the invisible line that divided the haves from the have-nots in the baby economy. She knew something of that pain, but it had to be worse to try to get pregnant and fail as opposed to not thinking it's in the cards for you at all. She didn't want them to think she was gloating or feeling sorry, so she didn't say anything till she and Pepper were in the elevator.

"Did you notice that one couple was still there waiting? They were in the same spot when we arrived as they were just now," Natasha said with a frown.

"Yah, you're right," said Pepper. "That's weird. Sometimes a guy will drop off a sample early and will come back with his partner later for her procedure, but nobody is ever there just waiting for over 90 minutes, not even for an initial consultation like you just had."

"How do you know all that?"

"Grace is my doubles partner, so sometimes I come in and wait for her. I must look very sympathetic because everyone talks to me if I say hello."

Natasha grinned, "You are sympathetic and easy to spill a few secrets to, Pep."

"I don't know, Nat. You had me pretty convinced I'd lost my touch for a long time."

"I'm not an easy sell, you know, but you are the best of hand holders. I really do appreciate you being here now and as a card-carrying member of the Bruce Banner Rescue Committee (or whatever Tony is calling it now) for all these months. Thank you, Pepper." Natasha smiled and took Pepper's free hand and squeezed it.

Pepper beamed back at the shorter woman with a big smile, "Don't worry, I'm going to collect on this goodwill at the baby shower!"

"What?"

"Hey, I'm not ambushing you, am I? It's a requirement to have a baby shower, and I'm throwing it for you!"

The incredibly slow elevator finally reached the ground floor. They quickly spotted Happy in the lobby, and he collected the extra bags from them to carry to the car. "Hey," he exclaimed, finally realizing what was in his hands, "does one of you have some very _interesting_ news?"

"I'll tell you when you get to the car, Hap," said Natasha.

"Ooooh," he said with a knowing grin, and led them outside into the brisk, cold sunshine.


	21. Chapter 21

21: What I Want to Hear

Bruce woke up with a start as Tony squeezed his shoulder. "We're just fifty miles out from the 'Queen City on the Ohio,' Sleeping Beauty. It's almost show time."

"Thanks," said Bruce. "Thanks for letting me sleep, too."

"No problem," Tony said as he adjusted the lighting and opened the window shades. "Have you gone over the TechUWear tutorial in the app?"

"Yah," said Bruce running a hand through his hair and yawning. "I think I can get in and out of them safely. If it's all the same to you, I'm just going to change out of them."

"Oh, come on. How about just turning the GPS off? I'm sure Natasha was all over that."

"Well, yah, you think?! She has a point. It's great for collecting all this data, but how well does it protect it?"

"Well, that is what we're trying to evaluate."

Bruce set his jaw. "Fine, you have a point," He said tightly, "but I'm still disabling it while we're at the doctor's office. Don't make me spell out why." He was already blushing deeply.

Tony snorted, "Not a problem, Stud."

Bruce let the dig go without a retort. His two main strategies for dealing with Tony when they had both made their arguments but were still at odds involved either stubborn silence combined with a deadly stare down or putting his foot down a little past what he wanted for a bottom line, then backing off a reasonable amount and ignoring the verbal digs that followed. He'd made choice "B" and gotten what he wanted then purposefully given Tony the barb to stick him with so he wouldn't have to flinch. Bruce knew he made a good straight man and Tony usually pulled his verbal punches, so none of this needling bothered him. It was all patterns and routine, which were his favorite ways of dealing with most of the world. Tony was always predictable when Bruce offered him up nice slow changeups high and down the middle because Tony would go for those every stinking time and pull to the left where it could be caught on the warming track. Inevitably, Bruce felt like a jerk afterward, but it was better than option "C", which meant he had lost control of his better judgment and been a sarcastic prick. So much for playing mixed sports metaphors with Tony.

Bruce looked out the window as the plane was descending, and he could see the rural farms turning into suburbs and wooded parkland. He had been born and lived in nearby Dayton as a small child, so much of the landscape looked familiar and reminded him of the mostly stable years he'd spent there near extended family when his mother had relatives close at hand and some real support. He was going to see one of his cousins in the morning who lived here and worked downtown. It had been years since he'd seen Rich, so Bruce was really looking forward to it since they'd reconnected through social media over the past several months. He was six years Bruce's senior, so he had some knowledge of his family during happier times.

Bruce remembered coming to Cincinnati to visit the Zoo and Botanical Garden and to see a Reds ballgame at the old Crosley Field that was long since gone and replaced twice over. Once he'd been ice-skating on Fountain Square with his cousins, too. He wondered if the city still did the outdoor skating rink in the middle of downtown. Well, he'd find out soon because they were staying in a downtown hotel on the theory they were safer in plain sight; however, the conference itself was on campus at the University of Cincinnati just a short ride north up the hill and away from the Ohio River. Luckily, there was a midwinter break, so most of the students would be away and avoid any craziness.

They were approaching the city from the northeast, so they circled around downtown and had a good view of the city. Bruce counted a few new skyscrapers and smaller buildings and parks, but the really impressive part was the Banks, the new riverside development that included state-of-the-art football and baseball stadiums, the Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a block of apartments and businesses, and a wide swath of parkland and outdoor venues between the seven bridges that tied the Ohio side to Covington and Newport, KY, on the south bank. Rich planned to show him parts of it tomorrow, but Bruce enjoyed picking out landmarks his cousin had mentioned from the air. The jet banked back to the southeast to approach the main landing strip at Lunken Field just a few miles from downtown. The pilot announced the weather was an unusually warm 50 degrees and sunny today as they made their final approach.

Soon they were on the ground and disembarking. Malory Gupta stood with her burley chauffeur and assistant Joseph Adair behind her right shoulder and her niece Kayla to her left, StarkPads in hand. Mrs. Gupta was an imposing figure at 5' 10", roughly Tony's height, but she carried herself like she was even taller. Bruce had yet to see her without her dark hair done up formally on the top of her head, so that always seemed to add to her height. He'd also never seen her out of her dramatic eye makeup and at least a half dozen pieces of gold jewelry which were always just short of going over the top. She seemed to have two main modes—imposing or charming—and applied either one or the other, depending upon which would get the job done. Bruce could handle "imposing," but he much preferred "charming." Luckily, Mal was all smiles as they descended the stairs to the tarmac.

"Gentlemen, how very nice to see you both again. Tony, you're looking well," she said as she gave him a brief hug. "Oh, Bruce," she said, briefly touching his face with her left hand and stroking the dark curls away from his brow with the other. "I'm so happy to see life is agreeing with you so much more than it was a few short months ago," and gave him a big hug.

Tony mouthed, "Favorite!" at him and Bruce just smiled, returned the hug, and enjoyed the situation. He liked Mrs. G a lot. "It's really nice to see you again, Malory," he said as they both stepped back. "Miss Gupta, Mr. Adair, you both also look well," Bruce said to Malory's assistants. Joseph, a brunette who could give Thor a run for his money in the muscle department, nodded his acknowledgement while petite young Kayla grinned. Tony fist-bumped Joseph and high-fived Kayla who handed him a pad with an itinerary and passed another one to Bruce.

"Well, guys," Mal began, "we have plenty of time to get you settled at the Cincinnatian after our little detour to see my nephew. Kayla is going to see that your luggage is delivered to the hotel while Joseph and I will go with you to see Parth."

"Sounds good," said Bruce.

While the luggage was being transferred, Tony conferred with Mal and Bruce took a few moments to stretch his legs. The weather was amazingly mild for almost mid February with a light breeze from the south and a beautiful cloudless blue sky. The Big Guy rumbled and hummed amicably, pleased to be out of the tower and Bruce standing in sunshine with new scents on the breeze. This was all one entertaining vacation to the Big Guy, so Bruce let himself relax for a moment and feel what Hulk was enjoying. He breathed in the pleasant air and was surprised to scent someone familiar. Bruce fought his and Hulk's instinct to start searching the building tops because he knew he wouldn't spot Clint, and he didn't want to give anything away to other possible watchers. Bruce decided it was better to error on the side of caution, so he turned around and headed back to the vehicles.

"Look, Bruce," said Tony as he approached. "We're going to ride in a tricked-out Hummer."

"Not my idea," Joseph growled, pushing his fingers through his close-cropped hair. "We're stuck with what we can get locally. This will keep you safe even it does have a high profile." The former Navy SEAL sounded irritated, but he obviously enjoyed the back-and-forth with Tony, plus it gave Bruce a bit of a break.

"It's vintage," said Tony.

"It's custom," replied the brown-haired bodyguard, "so get in and enjoy the ride."

Bruce knew way better than to get in the middle of the two gear-heads' "discussion," so he hopped in the big black monstrosity with Mal. "Wow, roomy," he said sliding across the expensive leather.

"Don't let the poshness fool you, dear. It's more armored than the President's limo," said Mal with a raised eyebrow. "Now tell me, Bruce. What's going on? Tony only said that you needed some data, but he wouldn't tell me why."

Bruce took a breath and held it for a moment before puffing his lips and blowing it out. "Well, you've probably deduced that I need to get a fertility test."

"Yes, that wasn't so hard to guess."

"This may be overreacting, but Nat got nauseous out of the blue this morning and she's late with her period. She and Pepper are going to the doctor this morning, but it hit me that I've never really been tested since the accident. So yah, we're gathering data."

"Hmm, that makes a lot more sense."

"Please be discreet."

"My dear, I am the soul of discretion."

"I know, but you know I have to say it."

Mal reached over and patted Bruce's knee, "Don't worry, my nephew is a professional and he owes you guys one. He was in New York during the Invasion. He'll get you your data and keep his mouth shut."

"Thank you."

"Now, what is keeping those two? Hey," she leaned back out the door and yelled at Joseph and Tony who had the hood up inspecting the engine, "let's get moving. I want to see my nephew."

Tony insisted on riding "shotgun," and they were soon on their way.

"So," Bruce asked Mal, "how did you get Clint to come help out?"

She smiled and wagged her finger at him knowingly, "He said his sisters in law have been visiting since last weekend, so he was ready to 'do something besides hide in the barn' is how he put it. I don't know if that's code or a metaphor or if there is a real barn, but he's here and that's what counts."

Bruce just smiled and snickered to himself, picturing that scenario. "True."

They chitchatted the rest of the way there about her extended family, Hulk's progress, what Natasha was up to, and what Bruce planned to say in his speech. Mal took the opportunity to ply him with bottled water because she thought he was going to need it. Luckily, they missed most of the morning rush, so it wasn't long before Joseph pulled the SUV into the parking lot of a modest office complex near the "Pill Hill" section of the city with its cluster of five major hospitals. Bruce was tempted to ask Tony to stay in the parking lot with Joseph, but Bruce knew Tony would be hurt, so he wasn't about to ask. Bruce grabbed his leather bag out of the back and trooped in behind Mal while Tony brought up the rear.

They checked the directory and headed to the second floor and entered the "Urology Suite" where the receptionist waved them back to Dr. Parth Sing's office. Mal knocked and waited till she heard a "Come in." It turned out Parth was a younger partner in the practice and still in his thirties.

"Oh, Auntie Mal, it's so good to see you," he said, hopping up from behind his desk to give his relative a big hug. "What can I help you with?" He scanned Bruce but recognition didn't hit his face until he saw Tony, and he did a double take that was close to comic. "Oh my, Mr. Stark," he said reaching out his hand. "I had no idea. What can I help you with?"

"Well, Parth dear, without going into too many details, your services as a fertility specialist are required," Mal said.

"Sure, anything," he said still shaking Tony's hand. "It's my day off, so I'm all yours."

"Well, thank you, Dr. Sing," Tony said. "Just call me Tony. It's actually my friend here who could use your help."

Parth finally focused on Bruce and nearly hyperventilated. "Wow, Dr. Banner, I can't believe you're both here in my office. What an honor," he said shaking Bruce's hand. "I heard you were going to be in town for the conference, but I had no idea Auntie Mal was working with you again."

"Which brings me to an important point, my dear nephew, we need this visit kept off the records as much as possible, and I need you to keep your mouth sealed about why we're here. This is supposed to be just a friendly visit from your Auntie Mal. Got it?"

"Of course, Auntie Mal. You can count on my discretion and so can you, Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner."

"Good," said Mal. "We might as well get started. Tony, come along. I saw a little café downstairs. Let's go check it out."

Tony looked like he was about to object.

"Tony dear, you're not a couple or a conjoined twin. Give Bruce some space and let Parth do his job." She took Tony's arm and led him out of the office. "One of you just text us when you're done."

"Here, have a seat, Dr. Banner," Parth offered Bruce a spot on a couch and grabbed a legal pad and pen to take notes before sitting down in a chair to Bruce's left.

"Please, just call me Bruce. Thanks for giving up your day off and agreeing to do this. I know it's really unorthodox."

"Thanks, Parth, please, and this isn't a problem. You saved my life in New York. I don't know if Mal told you this, but you held up a wall in Grand Central Station long enough for my girlfriend and me, she's now my wife, to get out. This is my chance to do something for you, anything at all, to pay some of that debt back. Well, tell me, what's going on?"

Bruce sat there for a moment taking in what he'd just heard. "Wow, I'm glad Hulk helped you out. That's rather serendipitous." The younger man smiled and nodded his agreement. Bruce took a deep breath and explained why he wanted the test without going into too many details and answered the doctor's questions about his medical history.

"Getting tested is actually a really good idea because, clinically speaking, your condition is so unique that it may completely defy commonly held knowledge. It's uncharted territory. If you have things 'under control,' there's no reason we can't get the easy parts done this morning and at least give you some answers to work with later so you can figure out your options after you get home and see your physician."

"Okay, what's first? The sample?" Bruce asked, smiling ruefully.

"You've got it right. Ideally, we'd have you do this first thing in the morning after a day of abstaining, but let's go ahead and give it a try since you've had several hours elapse and some sleep. Let me grab a jar for your semen sample, and I'll take you down the hall to the specimen collection room, which has a lot of other names. You can probably guess why. There are plenty of interesting magazines to look at and some videos, too."

"Sounds lovely," smirked Bruce as they walked down the hall. "I'm glad your aunt took Tony downstairs because I really did not want a cheering section for this part."

Parth laughed, "I understand. I wrote 'Green' on the sample container to keep you anonymous. Place the vial in the sample collection slot by the door when you're done and the lab tech will collect it. We'll go down the hall and do a physical exam then go visit the lab and see the results." He opened a door at the end of the hall for Bruce and showed him in.

Bruce wasn't sure what he was expecting—something in turn-of-the-century bordello maybe, but it was just a windowless room with a comfortable couch and chairs, a stack of magazines, and a DVD player with a screen. The place smelled of antiseptic, and Bruce didn't want to breath any deeper than that. There was a lavatory at the end with a supply of fluffy towels that made smirk a bit. Bruce set his bag down and hung up his jacket. First, he needed to get the TechUWear shut off, which turned out not to be so difficult. Once the app confirmed it was offline. Bruce emptied out his bladder, grabbed a towel to sin on, and then got comfortable on the vinyl-covered couch. He pulled up some voice mail messages Natasha had left him over the past few months when she'd been on assignment overnight.

Just hearing her voice, even if the message was only about missing him, started getting Bruce in the right mood. "I miss you, Babe. There was a spectacular sunset this evening, and I really wish we could have shared it together. I'll see you tomorrow by 5:00pm." She had such a seductive voice, even when she wasn't trying to be sexy. A couple of messages were much more suggestive, so he replayed them a few of times and found himself getting hard. He made sure he had the sample receptacle ready before he released the bonded waist on the tech suit the rest of the way, pulled the pants and leggings down, and finally touched himself. After being with Natasha so much, he felt a little out of practice, but it wasn't long until he had gotten a sample while thinking about what he planned on doing with her on Sunday. He quickly cleaned up and paused as he went ahead and took a radiation reading on the sample (background low again—yea!), and slid the container into the slot by the door. He went ahead and left the TechUWear disabled since he was going to have to slip out of it for the physical anyway. He sincerely hoped Mal was keeping Tony busy enough that he wasn't trolling the stupid app.

Bruce checked to make sure everything was picked up and gathered his things up before heading back down the hall to Dr. Sing's office. The exam was blessedly abbreviated and brief with nothing physical being amiss. Parth noted, but didn't give him the third degree over his elevated temperature. As he got dressed, Bruce considered not bringing the clothing back online, but decided it would be a bigger hassle later to explain it to Tony, besides they really did need to see if the security was worth its salt. The damn thing sent its happy little message that the outfit was active a few moments after that, so Tony probably already knew enough to guess he'd gotten through this part. _Thanks so much, TechUWear_. Bruce decided he was going to disable that part of the app as soon as he found a few minutes alone.

Once Bruce had everything back together, Parth showed him to the in-house lab where a tech had already set up and started running the tests on his specimen. "Thanks, Violet," Parth said, "I'll take it from here," and the busy technician moved on without a second glance. "I sometimes pitch in with the lab work when things get busy, so no one will think this is unusual," he quietly explained as he brought up the sample's data. "Okay, let me have a look here. Umm-hmm," he nodded as he pointed to the display. "Congratulations, your count looks quite good . . . really. You're over 20 million sperm per milliliter of fluid."

"What?" said Bruce, unable to hide his surprise. "That is not possible."

"Here, let me show you," explained the specialist, "it's a lot like a pregnancy test. It detects a protein only present in mature sperm, so if there are over 20 million, there are two lines on the test stip. You have the numbers, let's check and see how they look and if they move well." Parth leaned over a microscope with part of Bruce's sample and took some images to show him on a display. "Okay, it's pretty apparent from the movement you can see that the motility is good and they are headed in a straight line. Let me scan some over here. Yes, not clumping and good, vigorous movement straight ahead: you have swimmers, Bruce!" The doctor was certainly getting a bit enthused.

Bruce stood there thinking with his right hand stroking his jaw and his left arm wrapped around his middle, while he rocked slowly forward and back on his heels. Part of him was taking in the information; the other part was retreating into a quiet place between numbness and shock. This just could not be right. He checked the container on the stainless steel tray. "Green" was clearly written on the label. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. _Sometimes exactly what I want to hear isn't exactly what I want to hear._ He could feel the Other Guy drawing close, not out of anger, but empathy. OKAY? Bruce swallowed hard: _Focus. . . . Just focus._

"Okay, let's look closer and check out their shape and general appearance," continued Parth. He looked at Bruce to direct his attention to the right screen, "Are you okay, Bruce? You're awfully quite for someone who's getting such good news."

"I'm okay," Bruce said, "but this is a big surprise. I've just taken it for granted since the accident that I'd never be producing sperm again, much less healthy ones in any significant numbers."

"To be honest, I'm a little dumbfounded, too, but in a good way, Bruce. Considering your history, it's a huge turn around. You didn't even abstain for a day ahead of time. Look," he pointed to one of the monitors, "these little guys could win a Mr. Universe contest. Textbook perfect shape to the head, neck, midpiece, and tail." He took a stylus and outlined the parts on the screen as he spoke. "All it takes are 14 percent of them to be that good for a sample to be considered normal, and just counting here," he ran the stylus over a selected area, "you're above 50 percent visible in this subsample."

"Are you sure there aren't any big green ones there, too?" Bruce asked, half serious.

"Ha, very funny! No, not an angry green one in the bunch as far as I can see. The only unusual thing is how good the sample is across the board."

"Okay," said Bruce, "if you don't have to study or test anything else, I need the samples back so I can destroy them. There are people who would tear this place apart if they had any idea I was here and you had any of my genetic material."

"Really, okay." Parth swallowed hard, but didn't miss a beat, "I printed you out a semen analysis report, and I'll delete it off the computer. These machines are only on an in-lab net, so there," he executed the command, "and it's gone." He then had Bruce hold open a small red hazmat bag and placed all the samples and exposed materials in it and sealed it. Bruce shoved the bag in his duffle and folded the printout and put it in his breast pocket before he texted Tony.

"Thank you, Parth. This has been invaluable," Bruce said as he shook the young doctor's hand.

"I'd recommend getting genetic testing done as soon as you're able. From my perspective, everything looks normal and healthy. I don't think you'd have any trouble producing a healthy child, but like I said, just to ease your own mind, get the genetic testing scheduled," Dr. Sing said gravely.

"I'm planning on it," Bruce replied. "Come on, let's go face your aunt and Mr. Stark."

As they both walked out the lab's door and down the corridor and around the corner, Tony was already pacing nervously outside Parth's office. Rather than teasing out the suspense, Bruce gave him a smile and a thumbs-up sign as they walked toward him. Bruce braced himself as Tony grabbed him in an embrace. "I knew it! I just knew it!" Tony almost shouted.

"Come on," said Bruce. "I love you, Tony, but you're making this a little too loud and kind of weird."

Tony let him go, but wouldn't quit bouncing on his toes and heels with excitement.

"Congratulations," Mal said, giving Bruce a pat on the arm. "Now, gentlemen, we need to get moving. Come here, Parth dear." She hugged her nephew, "You did well. I'm going to have a man keep an eye on you the rest of the day. You probably won't even see him, but do be careful. You know whom we had to fight in court, and you know they're not nice people."

"I do," Parth said. "I'll be headed out a bit behind you, so take care and you be careful."

They thanked him again and headed out the front door. Joseph had the Hummer running and ready to go. Mal and Tony switched seats, and they were soon headed back toward downtown. "If it's okay, Mrs. G.," Joseph said, "Let's take the scenic route up by campus. Cell phone coverage in this town sucks, and I want to see if it's any better at the top of the hill by the university."

"That sounds like a wise call, Joseph," she said. "I'd like to see the area without all the students, too."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Biological Imperative

Tony had calmed down a bit, and he'd been studying Bruce since they'd strapped on their seatbelts opposite each other in the back of the Hummer. "So, what're you thinking, Bud?"

Bruce was fighting the urge to curl up in a ball and rock himself into a catatonic state. As it was, he had his arms wrapped around his middle, and he was biting on the side of his right thumb, staring out the window at nothing in particular. "I want to talk to Nat, but I don't want to say anything until she's back from the doctor's office. We're supposed to Skype this evening, so I'll leave it up to her if she wants to preempt that."

"Okay, that'll do for now," said Tony, noting the flatness of his friend's tone, "but seriously, tell me what you're thinking? I can see the gears turning, and I don't think you're in your happy place."

Bruce finally pulled himself out of his brooding thoughts, looked at Tony, and smiled apologetically, "Okay, since you want to know, I'm thinking about what has to have happened to connect Point A (before the accident) to Point B (the accident) to Point C (right now). That, and I'm thinking about biological imperatives. I need to quit because I'm beginning to scare myself."

Tony nodded, "I went through the last several months of data you sent to Cho and your notes while we were in the air."

Bruce leaned forward, hands on his knees, "Good, then I guess you've picked up on some of what's concerning me."

"Chuh-chuh-chuh-changes," Tony sang with a bemused shake of his head.

"Yes, and it's driving me nuts. I've known since the accident that I was damaged genetically, but I felt like I was still me. Ignore the Hulk. Who I was didn't change. I just knew my future wasn't going to include making a family in the biological sense. Zap! Gone. On the other hand, when I'm the Other Guy, he heals any damage he sustains. It's not instantaneous, but he's tough and physical damage generally doesn't last long enough to carry through when he transitions back to me unless it's pretty serious. Thus, it only makes sense that my body has been healing over time, but it's not just healing, is it? It's ' _upgrading_ '."

Tony knew Bruce's anxiety and tension had been slowly building over the last year over "concern" for what was happening to him. This wasn't a subject Bruce could really discuss in much depth with Cecily his therapist, so Tony was rather relieved they were talking about it now. "It's going to be okay, Bruce. We've known part of this has been happening for a while now. We're going to get it figured out. Either way, you are still going to be you. You're not alone. We're all going to be here for you."

Bruce pulled out his glasses from his shirt pocket, "You see these? About a year ago, I realized I don't need them anymore. My vision is now 20/20. Tony, I was practically born needing glasses, but today my vision is perfect. I could throw these away. They're just props now, but I keep them for something to do with my hands and so people won't realize what's happening to me."

"Bruce, none of these developments are bad things. Think, it's just like how you don't get sick and can go without sleep in a pinch. You said yourself, they're just upgrades. They aren't what makes you _you_. They don't change that. Try to think of them as new abilities or untapped talents."

"I don't know, Tony. I've spent all these years focusing on the Hulk and what's wrong and dangerous about him. What if it's not really the Big Guy who's dangerous? What if I'm truly the one who is?" Bruce buried his face in his hands before tossing his head back in frustration. "When I realized I had a chance to be with Natasha, a very primal part of me wanted nothing more than to exercise biological imperatives: have sex with her and father children. It's taken years for intimacy to be mostly normal again, but Natasha and I have managed it. _Yea for us, that's one down_. This has left me to obsess, off and on, over the genetic damage that makes having a child impossible. I've plotted out what would need to happen to repair this, knowing all the time it wasn't going to be possible because the damage was too extensive. Yet, it's happened, but it's not just a reset back to normal or repairs back to functional, it's gone beyond that."

Tony wasn't sure what to say, so he waited and listened.

"Here, look at this." Bruce retrieved the semen analysis report Dr. Sing had printed out for him and handed it to Tony. "Let me know if you need me to translate."

Tony unfolded the sheet and looked at the stats and the categories and then focused on the bar charts. _No shit_ , he thought as he took in the data. No wonder Bruce was on the edge of an anxiety attack. "Wow, 'Exceptional Production', 'Exceptional Motility,' 'Exceptional Morphology,' you're pretty much off the charts here. Congrats, it looks like you've made the sperm honor roll. You've always been an overachiever, Bruce. So, what did you do? Adapt the radiation neutralizing formula somehow?"

"No, that's just it: I. Did. Nothing. I took nothing for it because I conceded my condition was hopeless. I just thought about it like any theoretical biology or chemistry problem. I obsessed over it, wished I could come up with some feasible way to fix it, and then gave up and just dreamed and fantasized about it. Wished we could make a child. Had sappy daydreams about there being three of us." Bruce paused a few moments to collect himself. "I'm telling you, Tony, this sounds crazy, but I'm changing on my own. I'm sure the whole missing radiation and my adjusting metabolism conundrum are parts of this, too. I've just not been able to put the pieces together and figure it out."

Tony ran his hands down his face and leaned back against the leather seat. "Bruce, I don't know what to tell you, Buddy, except I'm here and we'll figure this out together. I promise we and Cho's team will science the hell out of this." He leaned back forward so that he was eye to eye with Bruce, "I know you'll disagree with me, but I don't think what's happening is necessarily bad. I know it's unnerving right now, but you can't tell me a part of you isn't intrigued by all this. Don't you want to find out if there is a mind-body connection at work here? What the gamma radiation taketh, it just might give back. You started out trying to prevent radiation sickness before Ross commandeered your research for his program and made you focus on the super soldier formula. I'm telling you, it may have just taken time to get the results you were aiming for. You might be curing yourself of the radiation poisoning."

Bruce laughed with only a little bitterness creeping in, "You never quit."

"Not until you get off this being depressed crap. This is actually pretty exciting! Imagine the possibilities, Bruce. Something good is finally going to come out of this. Don't fight it. So far, these things you're worrying about really aren't something that's going to hurt you or anyone."

"We haven't heard from Nat and Pepper yet."

"But we will, and odds are it will be good news. Hey, look at me, Bruce." Bruce quit staring at his shoes and looked Tony in the eye, worry still etched across his face. "What is THE worst thing that could happen? C'mon, imagine your worst."

"Cancer, tumors, infection, ectopic pregnancy, pregnancy with abnormalities, birth defects, an abruption, Rh incompatibility, _Altered States_ , _Rosemary's Baby_ , _The Fly_ … Is that enough?" He ticked the possibilities off using the fingers of both hands before he ran out.

"Well, I'm glad to see you're not lost in denial there, Bruce. Science fiction and horror films, maybe, but not denial."

Bruce snorted and shook his head, finally relaxing a bit.

"Seriously, Bruce, bad as these things would be, they are less likely than a positive outcome. Here," he said, handing Bruce back the printed report from the doctor. "Geeze, man, you ought to be more concerned about knocking up your girlfriend than all these _what-if_ s. Cap and Clint will want you two to have a shotgun wedding for certain. Make an honest woman of her."

Bruce leaned back and smiled, shaking his head and sliding the report back into his breast pocket, "I have tried, Tony. I have asked her four times, including New Year's Eve. She keeps saying she wants to wait till a year is up."

"Have you done it with a ring in your hand?"

"No, I thought she'd want to pick it out."

"Bruce, trust me. If you have a ring to put on her finger, even if it's just a placeholder, she'll say yes. Besides," he raised his voice so it would carry to the front seat, "Mal has very good taste in jewelry. I'll bet she could help you pick an engagement ring out that Nat would like."

"Check the itinerary update, gentlemen," Mal said. "Luckily, the best jeweler in town is two blocks away from our hotel or there is an heirloom place not that much further away."

Neither Bruce nor Tony had paid much attention where Joseph had driven the Hummer, but they had finally reached the highest point of University Avenue and could see the eclectic urban campus stretched out in front of them across a small valley and up to the next ridge like a squared-off bowl packed with examples of signature and landmark architecture, only a few of which were designed with similar styles. The east side of campus below them had primarily modern dorms and a large commons area with geometrically sculpted earthen works and other elements of landscape design on display. In February it was still visually interesting despite the lack of growing vegetation. Joseph turned the Hummer left on Jefferson and followed the broad avenue lined with off campus townhouses and apartments on one side and the domed practice fields and sports stadiums on the right as they headed south.

Traffic was light since it was the school's mid-winter break, so it didn't take long for them to reach the geographic highpoint of the area near the intersection with Calhoun Street. Joseph made a right and pulled over where the on-street parking was able to accommodate the Hummer, not far from a massive renovation project on a beautiful old church with fire-damaged spires. Mal had been monitoring her phone reception for several minutes and tut-tutting her dissatisfaction. "Well, we're finally at four bars here, so gentlemen, be warned, this may be as good as it gets." Bruce was sticking with his plan to wait till he could Skype that evening with Natasha, but he checked his phone and saw he had a text from an unknown New York number, so he pulled it up.

" _Hello, Bruce. This is Stephen Strange. I wanted to tell you it's time to remember now_." At first, Bruce vaguely recalled the name, but by the time he finished reading the message, he remembered it all: the breathtaking moonscape, the red grass, the tall physician-turned-sorcerer with the piercing blue eyes and high cheekbones, the tangible humming, and . . . _two flowers, one root_. _This is not possible. Oh, I think you know it is._

He quietly slid back in his seat and stroked his jawline with his right hand as he thought—images, ideas, and meanings that had haunted him for months at last slid into place. He closed his eyes and listened inwardly. The humming was rich and melodic. He felt it as much as he heard it. He took several deep breaths.

 _You're here, aren't you?_ He thought, opening himself up, throwing open every door he could picture.

"Always," said a voice that seemed much too small and too young.

 _Thank God!_ Bruce thought, _I've missed you._

"It's okay."

 _Yes_ , Bruce thought, _it's going to be okay_.

"Are you okay?" asked Tony, eyeing Bruce with some concern. His friend had gone very quiet after checking the phone. "You look like something has happened."

"I'm good," Bruce replied, willing himself back to the present.

"We could call your therapist if you'd rather talk to her," Tony offered gently.

Bruce shook his head and a smile crept across his face. "That won't be necessary. In fact, thank you, I'm feeling much better." Bruce turned and spoke to the two professionals in the front seat, "Mal, Joseph, when we're done here, let's please go visit the vintage jeweler. I have a feeling there might be an engagement ring there I want to buy."

NOTES:

Thank you to my beta readers Karen and John. Thanks to my hub for help with the hometown factoids for the past two chapters and last chapter's fertility clinic details.

Beloved celebrities need to quit passing away. "Always" was already in this chapter, but now it means even more. Thank you, Mr. Rickman.

The Bowie reference was also there from the beginning. You'll always be the pale duke and the chameleon to me.

Questions, comments, and conversation are all welcome! Don't be shy. :D

Also, if you have a suggestion for a baby name of either gender, please let me know in the review contact me here, the other platforms, or the Brutasha Nation page on Facebook.


	23. Chapter 23

23: Say, "Uncle!"

Natasha knew something wasn't quite right when she spotted the couple from the doctor's office tailing them at the department store. Gone was the sweet handholding and gentle consoling; instead, they were studiously ignoring each other and pretending to be interested in household goods to her left and appliances a section over on the right. So far they made much better actors than spies. Their demeanors were markedly different because they were now trying to blend in with the crowd of shoppers, but she knew they were the same two people and she had a pretty good guess what they might be up to. Natasha didn't say anything to Pepper or Happy just yet because they might have given it away to their shadows almost immediately. (She loved Happy, but she knew his limitations.) Her best option was to stay out in the open, keep an eye on the two tails, and not tip her hand till she was good and ready. For now, that meant she was going to keep shopping.

The three of them had looked through the cribs and baby furniture. Happy was in favor of an Old McDonald's Farm-themed setup (it was educational), while Pepper pointed out a nautical/beach-themed one (quite and soothing). There were also castles, rockets, a flower garden, and Noah's ark, but Natasha put off decisions on those because she knew Bruce would want some input. They picked out some basic infant wear and then moved on after "ooing and ahhing" over tiny dresses and overalls since they didn't know the sex of the baby. (Not that it mattered what sex this baby was, she or he was going to wear overalls.) They ended up in the maternity section looking at clothing for her. Poor Happy had been a good sport, but Pepper finally had mercy on him and sent him to get himself some coffee and make lunch reservations. Natasha picked out several outfits, and she and Pepper headed for the dressing rooms. It was now or never. If their shadows were going to make a move, it would happen here.

Natasha kept chatting as they entered the dressing room. Luckily, they were the only ones there at the moment and no attendant was in sight, probably because it was early on a weekday. Once the door was closed, she leaned over and whispered to Pepper, "Keep talking and ignore what I'm doing." She had to give Pepper credit, the woman didn't miss a beat and kept up the prattle with an occasional pause for Natasha to add a remark. First, Natasha threw a dark piece of clothing she had grabbed from the re-shelving rack over the wall-mounted security camera. (Thank God, it wasn't in the ceiling!) After Natasha hung her armload of clothes up, she proceeded to climb on top of the metal frame for the cubicles where she perched like a gargoyle atop the end wall, just above the entrance doorway hugging the wall.

As it happened, she didn't have long to wait. The female stalker entered with a pair of slacks over her right arm and the barrel of some kind of firearm sticking out from under them. Natasha waited for her to turn the corner, so she'd be out of the line of sight of anyone looking through the doorway. Natasha brought the butt of her gun down on the back of her stalker's head just as she landed on the larger woman's shoulders and then rolled clear of her falling body. The woman's right arm was pinned under her trunk as she fell, so Natasha grabbed her left arm and twisted it behind her back before she realized the woman was already out cold. "Hey, Pepper would you bring me my purse," Natasha asked as she turned the female's body over and relieved her of what turned out to be some kind of high-tech tranquilizer gun, which Nat quickly slipped into her jacket pocket.

"Oh, my God," said Pepper, peeking out of the dressing cubicle. "I guess I can quit talking to myself now."

"Yah, you did great," said Natasha with a big smile. "Drew her right in." Somehow Pepper didn't find that as satisfying or amusing as Nat did. "Come on, let's get her out of sight."

"I can't believe I'm doing this!" said Pepper as they drug the woman into the nearest dressing room.

After Natasha checked and made sure there was a pulse and the unknown female was breathing okay, she pulled out a zip strip for the woman's wrists and grabbed a pair of hose she was able to use for a gag. Natasha patted the prone figure down twice for anything to ID their mystery assailant, but she didn't find anything to help connect the woman to any organization or even a fake name, so she took a picture of the woman's face to run through the databases, locked the door from the inside, and climbed out of the cubical. "Grab our stuff, Pep. It's time to go. Text Happy to meet us at the car."

"Hey," said Pepper, bending down to pick up something from the floor near where the woman had dropped. "Do you think this was hers?" she asked handing Natasha a small metal charm with a full moon on one side and Saint Rita on the other.

"Don't know. We'll have to take a look when we get a chance."

Props to Pepper in Natasha's book because she never panicked, and they walked out of the dressing area as nonchalantly as if nothing at all unusual had just transpired aside from them not having her clothing size. Natasha didn't see stalker number two anywhere along their way, which made her start to get "twitchy," as Bruce would put it. "Did Hap text you back, Pepper?" she asked as they rode down the escalator to the ground floor.

"Yah, he should be pulling up out front right now."

"Call him."

"Okay," said Pepper as she hit speed dial. "Hap? Yah, we're almost there."

That's when the fire alarm went off and the lights went out. In a few seconds, the emergency lights by the exits illuminated the store well enough for people to navigate. Nat grabbed Pepper's elbow and guided her through the last twenty yards of darkness to the main gallery where they could see the front doors illuminated with daylight from the outside. "Go get in the car, Pepper. I'll be right there," said Natasha. Pepper started to protest, but the spy was having none of that. "Shut up and do it," she whispered intensely as she gave the taller woman's arm a firm squeeze. "Please, I need room to work." That got Pepper moving and Natasha ducked to the side and stood quietly amongst the racks of men's suits. She watched Pepper exit the building and disappear down the front steps along with a crowd of other shoppers.

It wouldn't be long before the lights came back on, but she was betting the male stalker hadn't given up. She worked her way back in the direction they'd just come. Sure enough, over the noise of the departing customers, she could hear a pair of hard-soled boots hitting the marble floor at a run. It was good and dark, so she timed the high sweep of her leg perfectly and clotheslined him across the throat with her boot. He hit the stone tiles hard, and she swung through her maneuver, using her momentum to pull him into the relative cover of the clothing racks. Before he could react, she brought her knees down hard on his biceps and landed a ridged blow to his solar plexus. The mystery man had barely made an audible yelp before the air went out of him. His gun skittered across the smooth floor where it was kicked to who knew where by the ongoing shuffle of departing feet. Before he could get enough air in his lungs to even cough properly, Natasha had his partner's weapon at his throat.

"Who is your employer? NOW!" she demanded.

He clenched his jaws and his breath finally hissed in and out, but he didn't seem inclined to roll over that easily, pissed-off redhead sitting on him or not. Despite the dim twilight between the racks, she could see his face darken with what she guessed was anger and frustration, but he didn't attempt to say a thing.

"Okay, we'll do this the hard way. Tell me what you want or I'll empty this magazine into you. I don't know what it does, but even if it's a tranquilizer, a whole clip will make it damned hard to breathe."

"Your devil spawn, you monster-fucking whore!" he spat at her.

"Wow, aren't you charming. WHO SENT YOU?"

"Go to hell, you crazy bitch."

"Thank you for the suggestion. Now, if you bother me or mine again, I won't be using a toy gun, and you'll be the one getting fucked over by a monster. Tell your employer to back the hell off," she threatened and fired one of the darts into his neck. She really hoped it stung. He looked absolutely furious, but refused to make another sound until he groaned and his eyes rolled back in his head. Natasha stood up and took a step back. The man went ridged, but he didn't convulse. The result reminded her a bit of Fitz's icer or some alternative toys Tony had prototyped but never fully developed when they were upgrading her Widow's Sting. The big difference, obviously, was the injectable delivery method, which meant it had to be some type of toxin.

After rifling through his pockets, she still didn't have anything more useful than wadded up tissues and a striped peppermint, so she took another picture. That's when she spotted the chain with the medal around his neck. She promptly yanked if off and pocketed it to examine later. She probably should have found a way to question him further, but there wasn't enough time to do more, and he seemed to be a pretty suborn sort, even if he and his partner were not that far above being amateurs. She'd seen all she needed to see for now, so Natasha stepped back into the deeper shadows and didn't stop moving till she met Happy holding the Caddy's door for her.

"The electricity is off all over the block. I think we're going to have to cancel our lunch reservations," said Pepper sadly as Natasha slid in next of her.

Natasha started to laugh, "Do you think so, Pepper?"

"I vote for that," said Happy as he slid behind the wheel.

"I bet it would be a lot less stressful if we ate in today. How about Thai?" asked Pepper, pulling out her phone to text in their order.

"I want the beef one with the noodles," said Happy as he pulled away from the curb. Natasha was pretty sure he didn't know what had happened, which was probably a good call on Pepper's part.

"Pad Thai tofu and veggie noodles, but nothing too spicy for me," said Natasha, starting to feel a bit nauseous just thinking of anything with meat in it.

"Really? You usually want to burn the house down with the curry combo," Pepper said with a dubious look.

"I am ruined and I'm blaming it on Banner," she said with mock seriousness as she crossed her legs and cocked her head with her chin primly in the air.

"Is his vegetarianism rubbing off on you?" Happy asked, glancing briefly at her in the rearview mirror. Only Happy would find one of the most interesting things about Bruce was what he didn't eat.

"He's not a fulltime vegetarian, but we both try to be low-impact and local. No, Happy, the morning sickness stuff isn't limited to just the morning."

"How long is that gonna last?" he queried.

Natasha looked at Pepper, "Through the first trimester, right?"

"I think I've read that somewhere," mused Pepper.

"Have you had any cravings yet?" asked Happy. "I dated a gal whose pregnant sister-in-law ate nothing but mayonnaise on white bread for three months and then cheeseburgers for the next three months," he said.

"No, but I could go for something with sesame oil right now. Maybe a Hellman's on wheat toast later," Natasha teased. "The burger stuff is making me queasy just thinking about it."

"Hey," said Pepper, "Look at your texts."

Natasha pulled out her phone and realized it was still set on airport mode. She turned off the setting and saw she'd just missed a text from Clint five minutes before. It was a picture of a business's parking lot with a sign for a urology clinic clearly displayed with Clint commenting: " _WTF?_ " Then another picture of Bruce, Tony, and Mal parading into the building. Clint wrote: " _Does someone have a UTI?_ "

Natasha snickered and texted back: _No, you durp. Guess again._ The response came back immediately.

Clint: _Laura says could be for a fertility test?_

Natasha: _Duh?_

Clint: _U and Banner?_

Natasha: _AAAAAAHHHH! Do u think!?_

Clint: _Am I going to be an uncle?_

At that point she paused and brought up her email and forwarded Clint the clearest sonogram picture. The message she sent was " _If you want to be an uncle, be quiet because Bruce doesn't know yet_."

Clint: _I'm an UNCLE!_

Natasha: _Aren't you supposed to be watching out for the bad guys?_

Clint: _Party pooper. Talk to him tonight, ok?_

Natasha: _That's the plan._

Clint: _Congrats!_

Natasha: _Thanks, Uncle Clint._

She sat there smiling and biting her lip. At the rate this was getting out, Bruce was going to be the last one to know.

That brought her back around to the string of profanities her would-be kidnapper had puked up. Security was only as good as the people who implemented and kept it. However, all the encryption and cyber precautions in the world meant nothing if there was someone leaking information either by accident or with malicious intent. For the two kidnappers to be in place, the information would have had to leak almost immediately. It was most likely that some party had been looking for it and had planned the attempt out well ahead of time. Then it hit her: that creep had said, "your", not "you're." She may have been the immediate target, but she wasn't the prize they were after.

"Hap, don't drop us out front. Let's pull in the garage."

"Will do."

"What's going on?" asked Pepper.

"I think we might have a serious leak, and I may need to call in a 'plumber'," Natasha said. "I'll tell you more when we get in."

As Happy rounded the block, they approached the drive and automated door that led to the private garage beneath the tower from the opposite direction. Natasha spotted someone on foot in a long dark coat approaching them from the opposite end of the block. The Glock was half out of her back holster before she realized who it was. "Please wait for him, Hap," she said. As Happy pulled into the entry area and brought the Cadillac to a stop, Natasha opened her car door.

"Well, it's about damn time you three showed up. Two more minutes and I was ready to go find you," said one of Nat's oldest friends as he leaned down to look her in the eye from under the brim of his fedora.

"Get in, Nick," she said and scooted over to make room. "We're preparing to batten down the hatches, and you don't want to be on the outside when the storm hits."


	24. Chapter 24

24: The Game Below the Table

"Are you surprised?" Natasha asked Nick Fury with a grin. When they'd reached the safety of the garage, she'd told Nick the news about Bruce's and her pregnancy. He had immediately broken into a genuine smile and given her a big hug.

"It wasn't on my radar," Nick said, shaking his head with an even bigger grin than hers, "but with you two nothing seems impossible. Congratulations!"

"So what brings you here to Stark's doorstep?" asked Natasha.

"Well, I wish it was a social call, but some of my sources are talking about 'stormy weather,' too," said Nick.

"Let's go up and discuss this over lunch then," said Pepper.

Natasha and Pepper caught the two men completely up on what had happened from the doctor's office to inside the department store while they road up in the elevator.

"You just left that woman inside the fitting room?" Happy said incredulously as they settled in the common area.

"Well, what would you have done, Happy?" replied Pepper.

"Turned her in to the … . Oh, you have a point," he noted reluctantly.

"To tell the truth, Hap," Natasha teased, "if you had been there, we could have rolled her up in a carpet and hauled her back here for interrogation."

Happy's eyes got big with disbelief, "No way, you're not serious!?"

"To tell the truth, I wish you had," said Nick. That shut both Hap and Pepper up very quickly and gave them an excuse to exit the commons area's living room and go start pouring up drinks in the kitchen. "Nothing personal," said Nick over his shoulder as the two hustled for the other room, "but we have a pitiful amount of information to go on." He ended with his eye on his former protégé.

Natasha cocked an eyebrow as she reached into her jacket pocket and handed Nick their attackers' weapon. "I'd say to knock yourself out, but I'd rather you be careful. There's a dart in the chamber and four left in the clip. The guy was out in about ten seconds when I put one in his neck. Completely relaxed him into dreamland."

She pulled the two confiscated medals from her pants' front pocket and laid them on the coffee table. They were identical, so she flipped one over and took a scan with her StarkPhone, and she sent them to Friday. "Friday, incoming info."

"Received, Ms. Romanoff. What information do you require?" Friday asked with her most Jarvis-y, businesslike tone.

"See if you can place and connect the images to any known groups."

"They both appear to be cast silver and bear the likeness of Saint Rita of Cascia, the patron saint of infertility and hopeless causes on what I assume is the front. The second image is of a full moon with an overlaid symbol of a rabbit taken from Asian folklore. It is also regarded as a sign of fertility as well as good fortune. As far as known cross-referenced group affiliations, other than ancient societies, there are none showing up in general searches so far. The actual medals appear to be individually handcrafted rather than mass-produced like the chain remnant attached to the one."

"Any luck with our attackers' pictures yet?" Natasha queried.

"Nothing yet, but facial recognition is always . . . "

"A pain in the butt," Natasha finished. "Keep digging, Friday. We may need to go to darker places. These couldn't be the only two people in the organization." Natasha ran her fingers through her hair, feeling frustrated. "Try cross-referencing with fetal tissue and stem cell research. Don't rule out religious affiliations either."

"I'm on it, Ms. Romanoff."

Nick had the weapon disassembled and laid out on the far end of the coffee table. He looked up at Natasha. "If it's okay with you, I'm going to make some inquiries with friends abroad." Natasha nodded an affirmative. "I take it you don't want this to distract certain parties in Cincinnati?"

"Correct. If that isn't our opponents' primary objective, it may still be their desired secondary one," she said. "Bruce has to get this requirement out of the way or it will set things back at least half a year and put some pretty unpleasant consequences into effect."

Nick shook his head, "As always, the game above the table is less than a quarter of what's going on underneath."

"And don't forget in the backroom," she added dryly.

"Since Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark are unavailable, would you mind if I brought in someone else to analyze these darts and the toxin?" Nick asked.

"Whom do you have in mind?"

"I have a few, but I may need to go down the list to see who's available and willing."

"Roger. If they can come here, we have the lab space. I'd like to keep it in the house if we can't keep it 'in house'," she said grimly.

"This also brings me to why I'm here," Nick said. "This may have nothing to do with whomever attacked you, but a couple of Helen Cho's team members have gone missing."

"Who exactly?" she asked.

"A couple of post-graduate students. One of them was directly working with Banner's data, but did not have access to it outside of the lab. Both of them accompanied Cho here this summer for a short visit."

"It's Sang and Duri then. How long and where?"

"Yah. They were last seen leaving on holiday to Japan almost a week ago. Never made it there. Needless to say, we're on it now, but I knew you'd want to know."

"Yah, thanks, Nick. I'll tell Bruce when I talk to him. Keep me posted." Natasha had met all of Cho's team and worked with some of them to organize their data transfers, but she knew these two because they had assisted when Helen had flown in to have a look at Bruce back in the middle of August. The rest of the team members Natasha knew more about through Bruce than via actual face time. He had been working with the team and serving as an unofficial mentor to some of them, so he was not going to be happy to hear these two people were missing.

Pepper met a tower staff member and one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel who had arrived with their lunch order, and she and Hap started laying items out on the island countertop in the kitchen so everybody could pick and choose what they wanted.

Grabbing a spare StarkPad Bruce or Tony had left on an end table, Natasha commandeered it and initiated a diagnostic program to probe the security at the doctor's office and their own at the tower before she joined the others.

The foursome seated themselves on the barstools around the composite-topped island where they could enjoy the kitchen's spectacular views. Luckily, Pepper had ordered plenty of clear broth and noodles because Natasha didn't feel like she could keep anything else down at the moment. The normally enjoyable smells were killing her, especially since Pepper had ordered extra entrees and side dishes. "How the hell does Bruce stand this?" she asked aloud because every smell, not just the food, seemed to have intensified threefold since that morning.

"Necessity," said Nick, "he doesn't have a choice. You know that's why Logan smokes those stinking stogies, right? He's trying to keep everything else assaulting his senses at bay. At least you'll be over it in a week or two, nemnogo mamochka. In the meantime, 7-Up and saltines is what my mother swore by for an upset stomach."

"I think I'll skip the cigars and just stick with the broth for now," Natasha replied, trying to regain her normal stoicism. She'd have to look up if it was safe to take Dramamine later. She made a mental note to avoid the stairwell to the roof because that was where Logan always lit up before stepping outside for a cigar break during his stint there working with Bruce. As she sipped her broth, Natasha found herself thinking back to the late summer and fall when so many of these issues had intersected.

The burly Canadian had trained Bruce for a two-month stint after she'd contacted him and called in a long-overdue favor. The Johannesburg Agreements had required someone from outside the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. to work with and evaluate Bruce's "physical wellbeing and control over his abilities." It had been one of those requirements Ross's representative had insisted was necessary to establish a baseline to determine progress. Natasha knew it was another attempt to humiliate and intimidate Bruce as well as control him. Luckily, Jennifer had spotted the language and turned it to their advantage. She consulted with Natasha to provide a list of acceptable and qualified candidates to oversee the requirement. On paper, Logan was a grizzled veteran affiliated with Canada's Department H and possessing a distinguished service record that included time as a drill instructor, so it was no surprise when the opposition's representative picked the ringer over two other candidates who were less intimidating on paper (but equally as handpicked).

Although he was an old friend, Logan was a professional and the man took his appointed duties seriously, which was exactly what Natasha wanted for Bruce. Ross and his associates had no doubt envisioned this as the adult version of the 'gym class from hell' or monster boot camp, so Logan had done one recorded session fitting that description before the digital recorder mysteriously developed several glitches, especially with the audio data, and it seemed to be stuck on a loop of Logan demanding pushups, squats, and jumping jacks from there forward. Natasha made sure she was elsewhere when the software issues happened and Friday had no idea where she was.

Natasha and Steve had worked with Bruce on his conditioning and hand-to-hand skills over the past few years and before that he'd studied under a martial arts sensei while in Brazil, but calling his physical training history eclectic and sporadic was an understatement. To complicate maters, after months in hiding with only limited access to facilities and no guidance or regular workout partner, Bruce was burnt out on weight training and he'd had about all he could take of treadmills and stationary bikes in small windowless basement rooms. Although the facilities in the tower were state-of-the-art and he didn't have to look far for workout companions, he was still cooped up and missed the out of doors. The confinement was even harder on the Big Guy who really craved open space. Bruce had done what he could to keep up a routine and stay sane on his own, but this was a good opportunity to reintroduce some structure and direction. If they were lucky, he might get more than that out of the experience.

On their initial meeting in the tower's secondary gym, Bruce was almost certain he'd never seen Logan before that moment, but the Other Guy insisted that he had encountered this unique individual in the past. Bruce got flashes of conifers and bleak rock escarpments from his time spent wandering north of the border and then bright-bladed claws and the iron and salt smell of blood, while screams and automatic gunfire rounded out the fragmented memory. Bruce reasoned, if they had met, it wasn't long after the accident, and it must not have been pleasant.

Bruce couldn't even begin to estimate the man's age when he shook hands with the stocky, black-whiskered stranger dressed in faded jeans, a vintage leather jacket, and sturdy resoled boots. "Do I know you?" Bruce asked, feeling a bit underdressed in his uniform pants, t-shirt, and cross-trainers.

"I met your larger friend a few years back. Quite the charmer," the older man said flashing a bright, toothy grin, which didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You didn't say anything about that before," said Natasha with an annoyed side-glance at her former colleague as she slowly turned to square up and face him, left wrist cocked on her hip.

"Hey, no need to power up your bite, Red. It's all water under the bridge," Logan laughed with his hands open in front of him in a gesture of surrender. "The good doctor here may not remember anything, but it was a misunderstanding that we both walked away from—most fun I'd had in years," he said, rubbing his jaw. "Yah, that green galoot packs a wallop," he added under his breath.

"He says, 'Likewise'," murmured Bruce who was puzzling over the images of flashing blades Hulk seemed to have fixated on and the faint metallic scent he was picking up underneath the tobacco, Old Spice aftershave, mink-oiled leather, musky sweat, motor oil, and earthy chlorophyll. Hulk was on his guard, but so far this was more out of respect than anger or fear. Bruce knew there was more behind this, but it was all too early in Hulk's existence for him to recall well, and Bruce had blacked most of it out, too.

After a quick, meaningful look at Natasha, Logan's dark eyes settled back on Bruce. "So, I've talked to Natasha. I'll be here till we get this box checked off for the Agreements, but what do you want to get outta this, Banner?"

Bruce knew this question was coming, and he'd been thinking a lot about how to answer it. "I'm tired of being a liability in the field. I want to be able to defend myself. I'd also like to be more helpful to the Big Guy so that he has some technique and finesse to draw from rather than just brawling."

"Right answer," growled the older man. "You're realistic and I like that. Take off your shoes and let's see how you move."

As Bruce bent down to untie his cross-trainers, he registered a low warning growl coming from the Big Guy and spun counterclockwise, away from Logan. His would-be trainer was throwing a low tackle meant to take Bruce off his feet and pin him to the floor. Natasha had already alerted him to the possibility Logan might test him, so this wasn't a huge surprise.

Bruce knew the mat was something he wanted to avoid with this guy. He had managed to get his torso and right leg out of reach, but not his right arm. Logan caught Bruce's right forearm with his left hand in an adamant grip. Bruce instantly registered that the hold was too solid to break with his current momentum, unless he could put his whole body into it. He threw his left elbow out to lead and mostly got his right knee around, but he was still in Logan's grip when his side hit the mat and his back slammed into Logan's side. Geeze, the guy was solid!

Bruce kept scrambling and reversed his direction as he bounced off his opponent. He tried to break Logan's unyielding grip with a left-hand sankyo lock as he threw his right shoulder into Logan's side. Bruce could tell by the low humming at his core that Hulk had drawn close and was on the edge of assisting when Logan let go of him. The old warrior turned over and sprawled on his back on the mat, having a good laugh. "You were right, Red. He doesn't call in the reserves till he's almost desperate. I couldn't smell the gamma toxins on you till the last second, Banner."

Natasha was taking readings with her phone, which she nonchalantly handed to Bruce as he rolled to his feet and backed a few cautious steps away from Logan to break his momentum. Bruce took a couple of slow breaths before he glanced at the screen to see the lingering hints of a small radiation peak then dissipating gamma surge. "I don't think that's a bad thing," she said.

"If that's really what you guys want to do," Logan said sitting up and beginning to take off his boots, "then it's fine, and Banner here keeps putting all his effort into suppressing the Hulk instead of tapping into his abilities. Sounds rather frustrating and pointless to me."

Natasha watched Bruce for his reaction.

Logan looked at him, too. "Doc, I thought you just said you didn't want to be a liability, and you also want to augment the Hulk's fighting skills. I'm old; did I mishear you?"

"No, you didn't misunderstand. I want to do this," said Bruce, feeling Hulk edge closer as he stared back just as impassively as the man on the mat. Bruce had expected some sort of "pissing contest," so he was quite ready to backup his words with actions if necessary.

"Good," said Logan who'd stripped down to his jeans and a white tank undershirt. "Let's see what the green guy has."

Natasha rolled her eyes, "Come on, K'nuckle Head, you already know what the Hulk can do, especially if—news to me—you've fought him before. I for one want to keep the gym and Stark's building intact."

"Okay, then," Logan replied with a hint of disappointment. "Had ta ask. Can you go halfway, Bruce?"

That gave Bruce pause, "We've not tried fighting like that. The most I've done is provide annoying color commentary to Hulk, which eventually ticks him off and doesn't help either of us."

Logan puffed his cheeks and blew out a long breath, "Okay, I'm not big on lots of talk, but we need to be in the same ring here." He gestured in front of him, "Sit down, Doc." He looked at Natasha and gestured to her, "Stay if you want, Red."

Bruce handed Natasha back her phone, and she gave him a lingering kiss on the mouth. He returned it and gave her a brief smile, not at all sure showing affection was going to help his credibility with this guy. "I'm okay either way," he said to Natasha, looking steadily into her hazel-green eyes. She gave him a quick smirk and a wink.

"All right, boys, I'll check in on you later. Remember, no actual sparing without me here. Them's the rules." Both men nodded and Natasha exited through the locker room to observe from the booth. As soon as the door closed, she summoned Friday. "Hey, Girlfriend, I may have screwed this up royally." She glanced at the two words Bruce had left on her phone, "What can you find out about Elk Ford in connection with Hulk?"

Bruce sat down cross-legged in front of Logan on the mat, mirroring his position. "What do you want to know?" he asked.

"I've read through the Cliff's Notes version of your file, Lover Boy, but it has zip about how your two halves work together."

"That's because we really haven't. Not until recently," Bruce conceded.

"Okay, how does it work? I'm guessing you do communicate, right?"

"We do now. I should explain that initially we didn't because I kept him as walled off as possible. I thought I could find a cure and be rid of him, but that resulted in me being prone to triggering incidents—Hulk outs—whenever my heart rate and adrenaline spiked. But you probably remember that from when we met before in Canada after the Elk Ford incident, right?"

"Comin' back to you, eh?" Logan grinned. This time the humor did feel genuine.

"Not much, just bits and pieces of things, some people Hulk found extremely irritating, a wrecked lab, and some very large and satisfying explosions. Hulk doesn't seem to hold a grudge, so let's leave it at that, okay?"

"Not a problem for me, Doc."

"Good. Anyway, there were rampages and destruction, which I barely remember. I eventually accepted our condition is chronic, permanent, and I learned to use my anger to keep the Big Guy closer to the surface and the incidents were under better control. But living on the edge like that begins to take its toll, and I knew my control was slipping away."

"Meaning?" Logan asked with a dark look.

"I may not be able to come back to myself. I might stay the Hulk."

"All right. Go ahead."

"After the Battle of New York, Natasha worked with both of us to calm Hulk down, and the arrangement seemed to be succeeding until Hulk and I both completely lost control and the result was what happened in Johannesburg. Since then, the Other Guy and I have both been trying to work together and establish some trust and understanding, so we can communicate better and be more effective together."

"Hmm, it sounds like you've been slowly building toward finding a balance. That's probably good. So is he in your head all the time?"

"I meditate and sometimes he's with me. I can sense he's there. He'll usually pay attention if I ask. Other times, he's there when he's curious or has something to communicate. It's usually urgent, like when he knew you were going to lunge at me," Bruce noted with a raised eyebrow.

"I wondered," Logan said with a grin. "Does he use words? He wasn't much on deep conversation the last time we met."

"Images usually, but as his vocabulary has increased, he's using words more. He understands language just fine though."

"Is he here now?"

"Yes, because you interest him. I'm not sure if he trusts you, but he has some respect for you." Bruce went ahead and opened up to Hulk. The earlier gamma surge had him feeling rather warm and connected already, so it was easy to let Hulk into his Liminal space. The Big Guy seemed to be just curious, but he wasn't at all in favor of turning his back on the stranger, Natasha's friend or not, after the lunging stunt. Bruce was sure his eyes were glowing, but nothing else seemed to have changed and the hum that accompanied the Big Guy's interest had remained steady.

"The respect is mutual," rumbled Logan, looking Bruce steadily in the eye. "Big Guy, I know you're in there because I can smell the traces of gamma radiation now. I'm here to work with you and Banner, so it's easier for him to understand you, and he knows when to help you and when to shut up."

Bruce rubbed a hand down his face and shook his head, obviously getting something from the Hulk in response. He bit his lower lip, trying not to laugh, "He rather enjoys that idea, but he said, 'Good luck!' working with me. He still thinks I'm rather bossy."

"Well, with that vote of confidence, how could we screw up, eh?" Logan chuckled, enjoying a laugh at Bruce's expense. "Tell me about your work with the Brazilian sensei, Bub."

"It was something I needed at the time because of the total lack of control I had at first. He worked with me mostly on muscle and body control, especially deep breathing, to stay calm and keep my heart rate down. That's become less of an issue over time. Also, my sensei practiced Brazilian Jujitsu, and I'm more of a classic Aikido type as far as philosophy goes, so eventually we were probably going to have to part ways. It just happened a little more suddenly than I'd planned.

"So you've taken the time to look into more than just the forms?"

"Yah, I needed a foundation. We still do, it's just that now the old one isn't exactly broad enough to accommodate both of us."

Logan nodded and continued to study Bruce. "Natasha says that telepath did a real number on you. Her attack is what triggered the rampage in Johannesburg."

"Wanda did one on the whole team, but I was the only one who went off on a bender and killed people. Neither one of us wants to be that vulnerable or easily manipulated again. This is twice now we've been targeted as the weak link on the team."

"Bub, could a been a lot worse, but I get what y'er sayin'." He tapped his right temple with his forefinger. I've had a number of people muck with my head over the years. I can't get inside y'er head and fix things, but we'll see if what's worked for me helps you two. You said you were tearing down the wall between the two of you. Let's think of this as an opportunity to repurpose those bricks to build you both some cover."

"Really?" said Bruce, who was both surprised and encouraged by the offer. "That would be more than I've hoped for."

"I won't bullshit you, Banner. With just two months to work with, there's only so much I can do, so we'll break it up and make sure you've got a solid foundation laid. I won't be here every day, but you'll be busy enough on your own." Bruce started to speak, but Logan held up a hand to silence him. "Don't thank me, you're going to hate my guts, Lover Boy. As your girlfriend would put it, I'm here to get a 'red line crossed outta my ledger,' not make friends."

The former soldier and spy studied Bruce for several minutes before saying anything else. Bruce held his gaze and kept himself as still and neutral as possible. "The really complicated part is that I don't want what we're doing to come back and smash me in the back later. I think the world would be a safer place if you two had better coordination and the rages were under control, but Hulk is already dangerous enough without having a black belt. Understand me?"

Bruce nodded, "That's not my, _our_ goal. We want to have control so the fighting is planned and the violence is precise, not like a bomb that takes out a large area and everything in it. I don't plan to tangle with you, but the Big Guy may have a separate agenda. Really, it all depends upon what you want to do and how you act. If you want a fight, he'll bring it, but he won't initiate a fight without being provoked. Is that acceptable to you?"

"It's enough to get us started," Logan replied, nodding his head. "All right, Bub, let's stretch out and run you through some forms, so we don't waste the whole day."


	25. Chapter 25

[Continuing Natasha's flashback.]

25: The Games We Played Together

Natasha had been half listening over the audio link from the observation booth as she pulled up every piece of information she and Friday could find about the incident at Elk Ford and the secret facilities located further north of the town. She was very irritated with herself because she felt like she'd slacked off and not dug deep enough to be completely on top of the issue. She knew and trusted Logan, but she had slipped up and missed what could have been a crucial intersection in both men's experiences. She was just damn lucky that Hulk hadn't reacted negatively to the Canadian's presence. Although she was well aware knowing or just anticipating everything was impossible, Natasha swore she'd do her damnedest to see this did not happen again on her watch.

As she looked out the observation booth's huge windows, it seemed like the meeting below had been successful since the men were now going over one of several forms with Logan correcting and adjusting Bruce's grip and showing him how to better balance his center of gravity. Bruce had improved his physical skills a great deal in the time she'd known him, but he still had his awkward moments when his coordination just seemed to abandon him. This may have had its roots in the autism, but with the Liminal episodes his body mass and size fluctuated enough to throw him off balance and make judging distance and hand-eye coordination a challenge. Luckily, with the open floor plan in most of the public spaces in the tower there were not a lot of doorframes to plow into or corners on which to clip his shoulder, but Bruce had found every one of them more than once. Coffee tables and countertop corners also had it out for him. To complicate matters, he seemed to be at his most distracted while his mind was on his work. The steps between the larger lab and his were an absolute bane. There were only five, but that was five too many. She'd seen him fall down them twice and stumble going up them more times than she could count. Tony had finally put bright yellow grip tape on the edges. She'd even suggested that he ought to get his eyeglass prescription checked. Some days she just wanted to encase Bruce in bubble wrap. (Yes, he was an awkward dork, but he was definitely her awkward dork.) Amazingly, none of these fumbles or collisions had led to an incident. She sighed and shook her head, and then Natasha turned her attention back to the bank of screens in front of her.

Well, she wasn't going to beat herself up over missing deeply buried incidents involving dark ops anymore—well, anymore today at least. She'd hacked into government databases both north and south of the border and then turned the search over to Friday because it was time to go play hostess as the boys finally seemed to be winding down. She grabbed the bento box of sushi off the desk she'd ordered to surprise Logan and the six-pack of Labatt Blue she'd placed in the booth's refrigerator earlier and headed to the gym floor. She would show Logan the stairwell to the roof since he probably needed to light up and have a smoke about now. If Bruce were willing, they'd all go up and share a beer on the rooftop. As it turned out, Bruce had a therapy session for which he was going to be late if he didn't hit the showers, so she pulled him close, sweat and all, and gave him a good long kiss. "That's a down payment for later," she told him as she pushed a few greying curls back from his face.

He smiled at her and rubbed her forehead with his. "I'm going to collect every penny, my sweet Russe," he promised and was off.

She then headed up the stairwell to share the six-pack with Logan. He was admiring the view with a lit cigar in his mouth and his arms folded across his chest. She walked up beside him and pulled off a Labatt Blue and handed him the other five.

"Thanks, don't mind if I do," he said with less gravel in his deep voice than he'd had earlier. He stubbed out his cigar and pulled off a can of beer before deftly popping out one of his adamantium claws and giving it a twist to open the can.

"Still hate tabs, huh?" she asked.

"Still hate tabs," he confirmed. She handed him the special bento box, and he grinned from ear to ear. "I thought I smelled the good stuff." He opened the package, took out the chopsticks, and inhaled before he dug into the maguro and chef's choice cuts with compartments of interesting vegetable pickles and colorful salads picked to create a balance of flavors and textures. Logan offered her first pick, but Natasha shook her head; she would grab something with Bruce later. Logan took a bite of the "tuna collar," a rare delicacy, chewed it slowly, and sighed with enjoyment. "I'd say I knew you loved me, but I know this is because you _know_ me and you _love_ him." Natasha just smiled as inscrutably as ever.

They stood there shoulder to shoulder watching the busy metropolis below them in companionable silence for a good while, and Logan was on his second beer and nearly finished with his lunch before he spoke again. "Damn, Natasha, you know how to pick 'em. That guy is wound impossibly tight one minute, and somehow swings it back to chill the next. He doesn't even smell the same from minute to minute. Hell, he's barely the same person I met in Canada."

"What do you mean?" she asked, feeling completely puzzled.

"I'm not talking about changing into the Hulk. It's Banner who has changed. His . . . well, chemistry or maybe biology has altered. Except for the gamma, it's a different vibe. I'm not saying this isn't the same person, but the amount of radiation coming off him was poisonous back then. Today, until his eyes started glowing, not a whiff of it. I'm not sure how to describe the depth of that type of change. He's gone through something extensive between then and now to curtail that much radiation."

"It's interesting you would say that. We don't have very much early data to form any sort of baseline from that early time period, so we've been left to speculate how much he's continued to adapt over time. We've known that however he metabolizes the gamma has evolved over time, but it's been a guessing game without knowing where he started. Do you mind if I share your observations?"

"No, I don't think it will cause any harm, and it's only a personal observation, nothing I'd put into any report. Temperament wise, he seems to have himself outwardly under control, but I can tell there's a lot going on under the surface."

"He's lived on a razor's edge for years, Logan. We're just now getting him to tolerate his other side and open up. He also has a history of family issues, but I won't go any further about that since it's his to share or not."

"You always did go for a hard luck case," he said with a hint of sarcasm before taking another long draw of beer. "Thought I taught you better, Red."

"You, Sir, have no room to talk," she responded and he gave a snort, but didn't argue with her. Natasha continued, "Bruce may not be the first diamond in the rough I've spotted, Logan, but he's the first one I've wanted to keep."

"That is no rock waiting on a cut and polish. He's still a big green gamma bomb waiting to go off. If you lose sight of that, you're suicidal." Logan closed up the finished bento and stacked it with the empty cans.

"And you would know?" she asked. "I think it's time you told me what actually happened at Elk Ford and parts north of there."

He sighed and finished his beer. "It ended up okay, so let's leave it at that."

"No, that was a large complex that went up, some kind of high-tech facility with its own power plant. It burned for days. I saw the satellite images. What did Bruce have to do with it?"

Her former colleague narrowed his eyes and stared at her a moment before making up his mind, "Okay, since you aren't going to let this go, it's still classified, but what I can tell you is that Banner was attacked by an enhanced pack of thugs trying to 'recruit' him into a weapons program while he was passing through Elk Ford. They weren't exactly subtle, and he escaped as his 'green sasquatch' alter ego. Because of the destruction caused in the town, Department H sent me in to investigate. I tracked him down thinking he was the cause of it, we had a misunderstanding, and both of us ended up getting caught by that same pack of riffraff and drug to the base. Basically, as we escaped the facility, we destroyed it and everything we could on the way out. After that, we finished our fight, monster to monster. Don't ask me who won because I passed out at some point, and he was gone when I woke up."

"Well, that actually makes some sense," Natasha said and finished her beer. Logan offered her a second one, but she shook her head, "No, thanks."

After a few moments of silence, he brought up a new subject. "What do you think of trying parkour training with your guy?" Logan mused as he opened his third can.

"Steve and I do some of that, but we've not tried much of it with Bruce, mostly because of time constraints. I can't think of a reason not to try it now except that we're stuck here in the tower."

Logan frowned, "I bet we could put in a request and get some time off for good behavior. His record since the spring has been clean. It's also going to be 'necessary' to properly evaluate the Big Guy. Between the two of us, we'll get a yes out of the review board."

"Okay, I'll put in a request to the board chair. Stark owns a large tract of land upstate. We've had the Big Guy out there before. Lots of space and trees and a stone quarry with a deep hole of a lake. No neighbors. We all like it up there."

Logan nodded and took another swallow of beer before bridging a new subject. "Now, I will end up regretting this at some point, but I need to bring this up. Banner was telling me about this 'Liminal state' he has that can go halfway."

"Yah, it happens, but he really doesn't have much control yet. As the walls have come down between him and the Big Guy, Bruce slides into the edge of that in-between state, but he really doesn't have control over it. He has to be well into it before there's more than a negligible physical change."

"You've never had him practice coming in and out of the state?"

"No, did he tell you when it happens?" Logan shook his head. "It's usually in the bedroom."

"Oh. Well, that explains some of the foot dragging," he said with a raised eyebrow and a chuckle. He kept shaking his head for a few moments before continuing, "Look, I don't like to push this, but he needs to get over his squeamishness and learn how to incorporate what Hulk has to offer or he's going to stay vulnerable and keep drawing fire. If I were going to go up against your team, the first thing I'd do would be to set Banner off mad and hope he distracted or took out his teammates. If that didn't work, I'd go after you if I had any idea he cared for you and because you're physically vulnerable compared to the rest of the team."

She wanted to argue that targeting her wouldn't give an enemy an advantage, but he had a point since that is basically what happened at Strucker's base when Clint was injured. "I don't disagree with that, Logan, but it's not going to be easy to get a workable level of integration." She shook her head; Bruce was used to being the "nuclear option", the Code Green, and he dreaded it. This whole issue really wasn't about wanting to better "weaponize" himself: it was about minimizing collateral damage and friendly fire so he could sleep at night. Natasha finally looked at Logan, "He'd probably be willing to give it a try up north."

"Okay, we'll put that on the itinerary then. It's too bad Stark couldn't put him into a suit," Logan mused.

"Oh, no-no, none of us want to see that again," she said.

"That bad? What did he do, freak out?" Logan asked.

"Tony said the gamma radiation messed with the suit's power system and the software. It completely shutdown and sort of fused shut. After about 45 minutes of keeping Bruce calm, he still had to transform and break the thing apart when the air was running low. The Big Guy wasn't exactly happy about it either," Natasha noted.

Logan stifled a snort. "Well, next time maybe he'll learn to close the jet's doors and keep them locked tight," he said shaking his head.

"Yah, eventually I did bring that up, but he already knew where he screwed up even before the Maximov twins hit him. He just couldn't get the ship locked up tight fast enough or get it off the ground."

They stood there a while longer in comfortable silence as Logan downed his fourth and final beer. "Well, I can hear my ride," he said. "I'll see you in two days. Banner has his orders till then. The sooner we can get out of town, the better, eh?"

Natasha could now hear the quinjet approaching on the other side of the building to utilize the landing pad, which was five floors down. They walked over to the other side of the roof and watched the aircraft land. Natasha then turned and headed for the stairwell, but Logan couldn't resist the temptation of the tapered 110-degree slide down the smooth, unobstructed surface of the building to the section above the pad. Before she could object, he waved and slipped over the edge with a rakish grin on his face. "Should have seen that coming," she sighed and collected the empty containers and put them in the recycle bin. She walked back to the entrance to the stairs where she almost collided with Bruce at the doorway.

"Logan's ride is here… sooo where'd he go?" Bruce asked looking around.

"What can I say, the man would rather make an amusement park slide out of the side of a skyscraper than do anything so boring as take the stairs."

"It's efficient," Bruce said with a laugh. "Come here, Beautiful," he purred as he pulled her close. "We've not made love up here," Bruce teased with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

"For good reason," she said, nodding her head toward one of several security cameras. She didn't have to mention the many other prying eyes focused on them from further off. "Come on, we saved you a beer," she said tossing him the final can.

He sighed dramatically, "Darn, it's warm. Guess it's only fit for making chili now," and took it with them into the stillness of the stairwell. There they turned to face each other and started kissing. After the frustrations on the intelligence front, she was looking forward to letting go with Bruce, even if it was hardly the afternoon; besides, she knew with a little persuasion she could start easing him into dealing with his discomfort over his Liminal issues.

He'd set the warm can of beer down and backed her up to the wall, "Any cameras here?" he asked as he leaned in close to her ear, grazing its edge with his lips.

"I already took care of those," she whispered in her sultry tones. (Yah, she'd long since made an app for controlling that.)

A hint of green flared in the depths of his eyes, "I could take you right here up against this wall if you want," he teased with the growl starting to slip into his voice. He placed his left arm beside her head with his hand braced against the wall and leaned down to give her another kiss.

"I want to play a game," she said, slipping her arms around him and settling her hands on his hips.

"I like games," Bruce replied and bent down to kiss her neck, breathing in the smells lingering in her hair from the rooftop and ignoring the hints of cigar smoke.

"You're already starting to edge into the Liminal. Do you want to make love this way?"

That got his attention. Bruce swallowed hard, "Do you think that's a good idea?" He'd spent the entire morning riding the edge with Hulk very present in his consciousness. Now that Logan was gone, the Big Guy was slipping back into the quiet spaces, which gave Bruce unhindered access to the full range of physical Liminality without having to worry too much about an accidental Hulk out. It was almost the equivalent of a hall pass or get-out-of-jail-free card, but one he'd never dared to put into play.

Natasha could see Bruce's anxiety level building. "You need to practice," she explained. "Hear me out. The game is, you get to pick the amount of green, but you have to maintain it. If you want to go without, go without it. If you can stabilize at a level where you're comfortable, do that. I plan to make love with you whatever way you want and whenever you're ready."

"Okay," Bruce said as he realized he was already edging up to a few inches taller than normal. Ordinarily, he would have backed off and just waited a few minutes for the green to subside. He was all too aware of what Natasha was doing with this game playing, but he found himself wanting to play her game. Bruce suspected this desire had something to do with all the alpha-male edginess left in Logan's wake, because he wanted to prove to Nat he could do it, but the stairwell wasn't the place for risky foreplay or going further. "So you're in the mood for a potentially dangerous game with the added bonus of this being 'practice'?" Bruce asked as he stroked her cheek with a hand that was just a little too large and very subtly sliding toward green.

She smiled temptingly, having to lean back and tilt her head just a bit to accommodate his increased height. "Call it practice; call it fun," she said huskily. "This is as controlled of a circumstances as we're going to get. Would you rather have Logan or someone else in our business?"

"Of course not, but we're still courting potential disaster," he said as he looked down into her hazel-green eyes. He knew she trusted him. He wanted to make this work. Bruce bent down and grasped her around her waist. His slightly enlarged hands easily encircled her middle, and he lifted her easily over his shoulder with her backside in the air.

Natasha's expression had gone from one of amusement to surprise, and as he lifted her up, she laughed and squealed with delight. She knew trying this wasn't easy for him because it pushed beyond so many of his boundaries. As he adjusted her weight on his shoulder and headed down the steps, Bruce finally relaxed a bit and patted playfully at her backside. He counted the floors down to their apartment and paused at the door leading into the corridor before opening it and carefully maneuvering through the doorway, hoping not to smack either of their heads, elbows, toes, or hips. He silently said a thank you that he was still able to operate the keypad, and soon they were in their apartment and headed into the bedroom. He gently set her down, wanting her desperately but needing a moment to find his balance in both senses of the word. Bruce often wore clothing that was loose because of circumstances like this, but he could feel his enlarged bones and muscles straining at some of the seams. He breathed deeply and did his best to find a way to exert some control over his body's size. It was like searching for the light switch in a strange dark room. There were logical spots to probe, but he still wasn't completely sure how this worked. _Slow down… Pull in… Slow down…_

Natasha saw him struggling with his hands clenched and eyes squeezed shut in concentration, so she held his forearms and sat Bruce on the edge of the bed. She'd thought his shoes were goners when she knelt down to get them off his feet, but everything came off intact. Next, she leaned him back and pealed off his jeans. He groaned with relief. "Turned on and too tight just don't go together that well," she noted with a small smirk.

"No shit!" he said as there was a ripping sound. He'd split the back out of his polo shirt, so he leaned forward and tore the rest of it off over his head. Natasha then stood him up and pulled down his striped boxers before the elastic waistband came apart. He took a few more long controlled breaths before he opened his eyes. She gazed up into his face, which had hardly changed. His eyes had settled into a shade of hazel darker than her own and lighter than his normal brown. The pink tones were still there beneath his skin, but green was beginning to assert its approaching dominance. She smiled and pulled him close, hugging him and resting her cheek against his hair-covered chest for a few minutes. "You did it," she finally said. "You've stabilized. I'm so proud of you, Bruce. Let's see if you can hold it for a while."

He looked at her a little sadly. "I really want you, Nat, but I'm afraid I might hurt you," he said as he stroked her auburn hair. "We'd better not play that part of the game right now."

"That's okay. Relax, Bruce, we have time to do anything you want. There's no reason to rush. You can always change back when you're ready," Natasha said, leading him to the bed again where he stretched out on his back. She pulled out her phone. "You're at a little above background with the radiation and still well within safety parameters." She laid the phone down on the nightstand. "Talk to me for a minute," she said," and Natasha pulled off her own boots and slacks to get comfortable, and then she stretched out beside him on the bed. "How do you feel about this?" she asked with a gesture encompassing the length of his body.

"I'm okay with it, but not all that comfortable. I'm sure I look… wrong."

"You look like you, Bruce. There's nothing 'wrong' with you," she said stroking his face. "Here, handsome," she leaned over and pulled a hand mirror from a drawer in her nightstand and handed it to him.

Bruce almost flinched because he was so reluctant to see his reflection, but he took the mirror and cradled it in his palm, swallowed hard, and made himself look. He studied his face, peering at his eyes, then moving his lips and eyebrows, and finally touching his cheeks and nose. "God, am I really getting this gray?" he concluded running his hand through his hair at the temples.

"See," she said, "You're still you. You're still the man I love. Believe me, you look fine."

He smiled at her rather skeptically, "You honestly think so?"

"Yes, you're you, Dr. Bruce Banner. I find you incredibly attractive. No matter what size or color your body or you hair takes, you're still mine. I love you. Body and soul, you're mine. You're loved. I know this isn't easy for you to accept, but you're no monster, no matter how big or how green you are. I know who you are and I love you." That finally got a small, but genuine smile out of him because he thought she was so adorable when she tried to make him feel better and the words just spilled out of her. He knew she loved him, and he wanted to believe her about the rest. He was working on it.

"Come here," Natasha said, jumping off the bed and pulling him up by his oversized hands. She pushed back the closet door so the full-length mirror was accessible. She practically had to push Bruce in front of it, but once he was there, the objective scientist in him kicked in and he was fascinated. Bruce stared at himself, slowly straightening up but not moving. She could see the gears turning in his head. Not so tall as Thor, but definitely as tall as Steve though the real difference was in Bruce's heavier musculature. Hulk was almost grotesque in his overdevelopment, but Bruce was only at about a quarter of that mass. He already had broad shoulders and a well-proportioned frame, so the thicker musculature didn't look out of place. He was heavier and more bulky than his teammates, but not beyond anything a mature athlete or bodybuilder could achieve. Thick wrists and hands, ankles and feet were the only odd aspects aside from the emerging shades of green. Natasha put her hands on his shoulders and turned him so he could see his side and back. He finally raised his arms and watched himself move in the mirror, turning, looking at his legs, and then flexing his hands and arms.

"Come on, show me your guns, Bruce," she said with a grin. If she'd ever doubted that he blushed from head to toe, she could certainly put that subject to rest. God, the man was adorable, especially at his most awkward and embarrassed. She was determined to get him over this. The more comfortable he was with his own body, the better he would feel about himself, and all sorts of possibilities sprang from that.

"Okay, but I don't feel like I've really earned them," he said quietly before flexing and giving her the requested pose and a self-conscious half grin. She giggled and ran her hands across his furry chest and broad shoulders then down his biceps and forearms. He was putting off heat and just felt good to touch! She looked up into his eyes, and he smiled as he enfolded her in his arms. He was warm and solid. He deserved to feel good about himself. Natasha pulled his face closer to meet his lips, and Bruce finally responded by kissing her in earnest and the tension began to ease out of him bit by bit. Her hands wandered down to his waist and then down to his gluts, a favorite place for her to massage. He moaned with pleasure as her hands worked his muscles, and the two of them continued touching and kissing for several minutes.

"What does this in-between state feel like?" she finally asked him.

Bruce thought for a minute, "It feels warmer than normal. It's not painful. Physically, it throws my coordination and balance off a little. It's hard to tell if this is really my skin I'm in or not." He paused and chewed a bit at his lower lip. "Inside, there's a slight hum, but Hulk is in a quiet spot. After keeping tabs on Logan for so many hours, the Big Guy needs his downtime, so he's unusually quiet in my head right now." Bruce smiled fondly and continued, "In fact, my head is pretty calm and clear period," he noted, thinking of the loops in which his thoughts often became snarled. He flexed and fisted his right hand, studying it. "This feels powerful. I think I could set your old friend back on his heels if I needed to do that."

"Do you think it makes you more aggressive or edgier?" she asked with a raised eyebrow since she had her suspicions.

He seriously considered it a moment, "No, I don't think so; that feeling was already there. I just kept it held back in reserve all morning, but now I'm starting to get tired. There's a lot of will required to keep this state stable."

She checked the clock, "You've made it almost 30 minutes total. Are you ready to let go?"

"Yah, I need to come back," he admitted.

Natasha led Bruce to sit down and stretch out on the bed. To accommodate the added height, she had him lay at an angle. She made a mental note to thank Tony again for insisting on welding and reinforcing the steel and composite bed frame he'd designed specifically for possible occasions like this when Bruce's mass fluctuated. Once Bruce was settled, she lay down next to him again, "Tell me if I can do anything to help you."

"Just stay with me," he said reaching out and grasping her hand. He lay back and closed his eyes, taking deep and even breaths. He envisioned the green irradiated cells receding into his blood and being carried away through his veins. Bruce thought about the space between subatomic particles reacting with the radiation as it returned to his bones and wondered if it reversed more than just polarities and attracted or repelled dark matter as the mass seemed to appear and disappear as he changed. He made a mental note to look into this. He could feel something leave him almost as gently as an exhalation of breath. He arched his back as muscles and bones slipped and contracted. It was more uncomfortable than painful since it wasn't a full transformation. For a brief moment his skin seemed to crawl with energy that licked down his spine and settled in his core before it was gone. That was a little odd, he noted; normally, there was a hum, a vibration, not a static shock. When he opened his eyes, he knew he was back to relatively normal as he squeezed Natasha's hand and she kissed his fingers.


	26. Chapter 26

26: The Games We Play in Our Heads

Still holding his hand, Natasha smiled at Bruce as she lay there propped up on one elbow beside him. "Who's this sexy naked guy with the big brown eyes in my bed?" she teased.

"The one who's going to make sweet, passionate love to you and then pass out," he said with a grin as he rolled over to face her. She leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek then rolled over on top of him so her knees were astride his hips. "You have on way too many clothes," he said reaching up and unbuttoning her blouse, glad that his fingers were now small enough not to damage it out of clumsiness. "It's a good thing I'm around to take care of that. Whatever would you do?" he noted with a raised eyebrow and a teasing smirk.

Natasha laughed and slipped out of her now unbuttoned shirt. "And here I thought you were all tired out."

Without having to devote thought and energy to holding himself physically stable, Bruce realized he felt much less drained and the mental fog he'd felt creeping in around the edges of his consciousness was gone. His head didn't hurt like anything nearly as intense as a migraine, but the fatigue certainly could distract him and muddle his head. She leaned down over him and Bruce took her breasts in his hands, rubbing them gently as he traced her nipples through the beige lace of her bra with his thumbs before pulling her closer and reaching behind to unfasten the clasp. She straightened and pulled the straps off her shoulders and let the lingerie fall beside them.

Bruce pulled her closer again and began to kiss underneath her pale breasts. He worked his way slowly up to the rose-hued areolas. He breathed on them and her nipples began to contract and harden. "You're so, so beautiful," he murmured. Bruce moistened his lips and kissed her right nipple, tentatively licking with his warm tongue before taking her into his mouth and sucking gently. His right hand encompassed her left breast and firmly kneaded it.

Natasha moaned, "Oh, Lover, I've wanted you all day." With her weight supported on her right arm, she ran her other hand's fingers through his silver-shot curls, not wanting him to stop. Bruce sucked a little harder, leaving a bit of a bruise on her nipple before switching his attention to her left breast. He nuzzled and rubbed his face between the porcelain globes before turning and tonguing and sucking the left nipple. She bit her lower lip. "Oh, Bruce," she whimpered, "I need you. I need you badly."

He reached down to her hips, sliding his hand between their two bodies, and he began to rub gently between her legs on the outside of her cotton panties. "Do you need me here?" he asked, looking up into her face and taking in her expression.

"Yes, I need you there," she said, working a bit to control her breathing.

"Then let's get these delicates off. I want to eat you out before you apply anything," he said, thinking about the slightly bitter radiation-inhibiting foam. "Would that be all right?" She nodded as her breathing became more ragged. He then used both hands to grasp and rip her cotton panties above the hip on one side and then the other so that they came free of her, and he discarded them on the floor. Natasha smiled down at him. He was just full of surprises today. Bruce guided her so that she straddled his shoulders and could lean back on his chest. He stroked her thighs, so pale and strong, and planted kisses up to her nether lips. When he reached the pulse points on her thighs, Bruce carefully gnawed and applied pressure before moving higher to her labia. He blew on the red-gold hair and she shuddered, anticipating his touch. Bruce reached over her left thigh and slowly drew back the folds of her flesh with his fingers, breathing deeply and almost getting lost in the perfume of her. He used his other hand on her hips to guide her to his mouth. Bruce licked and probed her with his tongue, kissing her deeply, lovingly. She was so beautiful from every angle and in every way. Bruce was pleased to feel her react to his caresses and wanted nothing more than to have her happily squirming at his touch. He took his time teasing her a bit by blowing, vibrating his tongue, and rubbing in different spots.

Natasha shuddered, arching her back and grabbing his hand on her hip and his knee, which he'd drawn up to steady them both. She was trying to stay still, but he was making her want to writhe and grind her hips into his face. She buried a hand in his thick graying curls. Bruce always ran a little warm to begin with, but she could feel that he was heating up beneath her. His hot tongue was darting in and out of her, and he pushed his mouth further into her, pulling her down to get as deep as he could. His lips and his tongue worked her lower lips and continued to probe her interior. Natasha couldn't help herself, he had her so hot and wet that she let go and ground her hips into him, pulling his hair a bit. He responded by pressing into her harder and intensifying his attentions.

"Bruce!" she cried out. She was going to come. He quickly shifted and licked and sucked at her clitoris frantically until she was shaking and came in a trembling rush. He held her steady, easing her back on his chest and stroking her thighs. Fluids poured from her onto his chest. He brought both knees up to support her as she leaned back, held onto him, and continued to tremble, arching her back and gasping for air.

Bruce loved watching her even at this odd angle because she was always radiant with afterglow. He smiled to see she was beautifully flushed from her throat down past her breasts. "Ah, are you all right my russe Russe?" he asked with a smirk.

Natasha opened her eyes and snickered at his silly wordplay. "If I am flushed red, it's your fault, Banner," she said huskily and leaned forward to take her weight back onto her knees, so he could extricate himself.

"Guilty," Bruce said with a grin before he eased from underneath her. "I will take full responsibility for some of that orgasm." He sat up and grabbed the ruins of his shirt from the end of the bed and wiped the worst of the stickiness off his face and chest before turning to her.

With a ragdoll-like flop, Natasha leaned against him, "What a freaking orgasm! You've wrecked me again," she said as she curled up beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Bruce rubbed his forehead against hers. "Thank you, Love. I really needed that," she said. They grinned at each other, and Natasha kissed him full on the mouth. She could taste herself on Bruce's warm lips, and he smelled of her, too, her bright citrus to his subtler sage, and their muskiness together with something warm and earthy underneath.

As she kissed Bruce, Natasha prodded him with her tongue, and Bruce opened his mouth a little further to accommodate her as she slipped her tongue past his teeth. He groaned with pleasure as their tongues met and intertwined. Bruce ran his warm hands over her bare back and down her shapely flanks before drawing Natasha into his lap. "I'm so glad you're not squeamish about bodily functions," Bruce said when they finally broke from their kiss.

"As long as it smells and tastes this good, I have no problem with our bodies' functions," she replied while running her hands through his hair and across his chest. "Are you feeling all right? You seem a little hot."

"I think it's just the aftereffects of riding the line with the Liminality all morning. It'll settle out after a while. Don't worry," Bruce said, smiling at her reassuringly. "Biology can be beautiful, but it's seldom neat or sterile," he noted as he stroked her face and kissed her again. "We'll have to take this into the shower when you're ready."

She reached over and grabbed her phone to take another scan with the Geiger-Mueller app. "You are completely back to normal background level."

Bruce shook his head, "I'm glad I am. Don't get me wrong, but this vanishing radiation is starting to concern me."

"Hush," she said placing her index finger on his lips. "Put that conundrum at the back of your mind. I want all of you here with me, Lover."

"I am," he said and playfully caught her finger between his teeth.

Natasha pulled him closer via his teasing hold on her finger and kissed him along his jaw until he released her. She carefully shifted so she was straddling his lap and faced him.

"Wow, this is nice," he said, caressing her hips and running his hands down her thighs. "Maybe I better get a condom on?" he noted and carefully leaned over and pulled a condom package and a dose of neutralizing foam out of the nightstand and handed her the latter. He watched her use the applicator and deftly toss it into the wastebasket across the room. "You are such a jock, Nat. I love that," Bruce said with an appreciative chuckle.

She smirked provocatively and reached down between them to touch him. "How are you doing?" she asked as she gently cupped his balls and his body immediately responded.

"I'm getting there," Bruce replied. He was already stiffening up at her touch, so she began to stroke his swelling shaft as he rolled his hips. "Don't stop, Baby," he half growled half purred with a sigh as he arched his back and leaned backward to give her room. After a few more firm strokes from her, he retrieved the condom package he'd laid beside him. Natasha deftly took it from his hands and grinned as she tore the package open with her teeth and fitted the condom to his now throbbing hard on. She continued stroking him and he groaned. "Thank you, Natasha," he whispered. "How energetic do you want to be?"

"Let's start slow," she answered, and Natasha pushed her hips in closer to him as he guided his hard cock into her.

Bruce wrapped his arms around her, supporting her back and pulling her in tight as he penetrated her with smooth, slow thrusts. "You feel so good," he moaned.

"This _is_ nice," she said in his ear as she ran her hands across his back, stroking his spine, sliding her hands across his broad shoulders and caressing his arms. She laid her head against his neck, and Bruce stroked her beautiful red hair. The feeling of their bodies rubbing together, skin on skin, warmth and heat was so pleasurable neither of them wanted to stop. He gently but steadily pushed into her, slowly picking up the pace bit by bit.

He soon moved his hands to her hips, gripping and massaging them and her backside, and then he began to thrust a little harder and faster using the mattress's springiness for some added bounce. She shifted to wrap her legs abound his waist, so she could work with his thrusts, sliding up and down, going deeper and harder. Soon, they were both panting, getting closer to orgasm. "Are you ready to come for me again, sweet girl?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, Bruce. Oh, Bruce," Natasha moaned as she buried her hands in his hair. "I'm almost there!"

He dug his fingers into her hips. "Come for me. Come for me, Natasha!" he urged her.

She threw her head back and her shuddering orgasm overtook her, "Bruce!"

He held her steady, wrapping his arms around her to support her and hold her to him. He drove one last deep thrust into her and let go a guttural moan, "Oh, Nat! Ohhh!"

Bruce immediately knew he was going Liminal, but he sensed there was something beyond that happening to him, something he could not control at all. "No!" he choked out and instantly felt himself drowning in a wave of panic, trying to avoid changing size or doing anything that might hurt Natasha. Instantly sensing something had gone wrong, Natasha swiftly rolled them both over toward the center of the bed and separated from him. Safely free from her body, Bruce curled himself into a fetal position, eyes dimly glowing and his muscles contracting spasmodically.

Natasha placed her hands on both sides of his face, "I'm here, Bruce, stay with me. Don't fight this. If it's going to happen, relax and let it happen. We're safe here. Breathe. Breathe with me." After a few tense moments without a response, his eyes snapped to meet hers. She had never seen them glow with this much intensity before. She couldn't distinguish between the irises and the whites for the brightness. He was also heating up. "Change if you need to Bruce. I'm safe. We're both safe. This is nothing to be ashamed of. You're adjusting to something new."

Bruce realized he had been holding his breath, so he let the air escape from his lungs and concentrated on inhaling and exhaling. _In… . Out… . In… . Out… ._ He shuddered and willed himself to open up his inner senses. He was sure Hulk was not stirring, not yet anyway. Knowing he wouldn't have to deal with the Big Guy made him feel a little better. Why was it so hot in here? The blood was pounding in his ears, but he tried to listen to Natasha's voice and let her become his anchor, "We're okay. It takes time and practice to get proficient at anything." He groaned and struggled to turn over onto his back. He felt uncomfortably hot and flushed. Suddenly, the sweat was pouring off him. A feeling like an electrical pulse started playing up and down his spine and scorching new paths down his limbs. Natasha helped him reposition himself on his back as a new rush of fire rolled through him. The first wave had attacked his neural track while this one flamed through his muscles. It started warm, but soon became impossibly hot. Next, came the bones, which seemed to smolder, trying to take in the sparks and fire. He could feel his core pulling in the energies, struggling to contain the overload.

His eyes were still glowing, but he held her gaze steadily again. "Relax, Bruce. I'm here." He finally felt a warm swell of green engulf him and he thought of floating. Like a tide it rose and carried him away. He pictured himself in a Marc Chagall painting, detached from all earthly connections except for what he felt for this beautiful woman holding his hand and speaking his name. _Natasha, my Natasha_. He tried to say her name out loud, but it came out as a dry croak. In a few labored heartbeats, he had stopped fighting. The bitter, yellow tang that was panic was gone, but now he was drifting. It was warm here, very warm. His eyes wanted to close. He was either very light or very heavy. Maybe it was just his eyelids that were weighed down like there were coins on them.

"Don't lose the coins. You'll need those," his father warned as they waited by the river.

"I don't want them, Dad."

"They're your birthright. You have to keep them. Don't be foolish."

"Please, take them back. They're not mine."

"You're such an ungrateful little monster… ."

"I'm not little. I haven't been little for a long time."

Beside him was the great green horse out of the other Chagall painting he liked so much. Bruce climbed on its broad back. The horse looked at his father. "He doesn't need your coins, old man. I'm here to take him back."

Bruce dropped the coins at his father's feet. "I'm sorry. They're yours, not mine. I won't use them. I'm not you." The horse snorted its approval and quickly turned, tossing its head before trotting off at a steady pace. Bruce didn't even think about looking back. The sun was so bright and hot he couldn't tell where they were going. It was like a winter whiteout that his eyes couldn't tolerate, but it was hot, burning hot. "Where are we going?" Bruce finally asked.

"Back," said the horse.

After a long while, Bruce asked, "What's your name?"

"I don't have one," replied the horse.

"You look like a Marc Chagall."

"Please," snorted the horse, "we're almost there."

"Tony would think this is really funny," Bruce noted. "You know, the song lyrics and all. America, right? 'I've been through the desert…'?"

Bruce wondered if a horse could be vexed because that's what it sounded like as it gave a sigh of complete exasperation. "Okay, sorry," Bruce said to the horse.

"It's okay. I, uh, I need to tell you something," said the great green beast, looking over its left shoulder and suddenly sounding a bit shy and hesitant.

"Okay, what is it?" Bruce asked as he patted the horse's neck.

"I want to tell you I'm sorry," said the horse, now sounding embarrassed.

"Sorry? Sorry for what?" Bruce asked feeling a little lost and squinting, trying to get a look at the horse's face.

"Uh, you know how when you upgrade a computer's software, sometimes you have to shut it down and reboot the system?"

"Yah, why?"

"Normally, I just tweak a little at a time around the edges, small stuff that helps with safety and efficiency. This time I was a little more ambitious. It hurt you. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Things should be okay now."

"So, you're apologizing for . . .?"

"Bringing you here like this. I should have been more careful. I'm sorry. Look, I'm not good at social interactions. It's not like I get out much."

"Okay, it's all right. No harm done." Bruce patted the horse's shoulder, trying to reassure the beast. "You came and brought me back, right? I feel okay now. Thank you. Things were about to get really awkward back by the river."

The horse sighed in relief. "I'm glad you're okay with it. One day, I think you'll be happy with what I did. I do try to look after you. That just leaves one other thing I need to ask you."

"Sure," said Bruce, trying to figure out what the horse could have done. Thinking was making him feel woozy.

"I would really like to have a bookshelf," the horse said quite solemnly.

"A bookshelf?" Bruce was completely surprised by this. _What would a horse need a bookshelf for?_

"Yah, I'm asking you the boon of a bookshelf. You have a bunch of bookcases with shelves. I'd just like to have one shelf. I don't care which one," explained the horse.

"You mean like one in the guest bedroom or the living room or the lab and not here?"

"Yah, one in the guest bedroom would be perfect!"

"Is that all? You don't want a shrubbery or anything?" Bruce joked because of the absurdity of all this.

"No, I really don't need a shrubbery," said the horse quite seriously.

"You just want an empty bookshelf? Nothing on it?" Bruce asked, trying to figure out the odd request.

"I'd be okay if you put some books you like on it, but nothing too complicated like the professional journals you read. I like nice books with pictures."

"Oh, okay. I get it now," Bruce said as it finally dawned on him who this must be. "Don't worry, I can do this for you."

"Thank you! A bookshelf and some books would make me very happy." Bruce thought the horse sounded quite pleased. They had slowed down and now they came to a halt. "We're back," the horse announced. It all still looked blindingly white to Bruce, but he thought it had gone from glairing sunlight to more of a white fog a little softer around the edges. The heat seemed to have back off as well.

"Okay, thanks," Bruce said a bit sadly. "Will I see you again?"

The horse snorted, "Up to you. I'm always here." Bruce was about to ask where "here" was, but he didn't. "I don't want to rush you," the horse said, "but people are worried about you."

"I guess I need to go then," Bruce said a little reluctantly, "but I do want to talk to you again." He leaned forward over the horse's withers and swung his leg back over its broad green rump, so he could lower himself to the ground. However, as Bruce slid off, his feet never hit anything solid. He was falling and the horse became an olive drab helicopter framed against a starry night sky. Bruce could almost watch himself as he waved good-bye to brave, dark-haired Betty and her glowering father as he fell. He remembered that it had hurt briefly when he hit the ground.

What had once been a raw gaping wound was now only a dull ache. He didn't really think about it until a rain was imminent, and there it was in his bones. He had done the right thing at the time. He was at peace with it. Then, for a moment, he understood it. He understood that as his bones expanded, their structure became more porous and the radiation was released, converting to heat and reversing the polarity of the ions, which attracted the dark matter that in turn supplied the mass that . . .

"Man, you're impossible," the horse said, sounding a bit relieved. "I guess I can't leave you alone here without you getting lost," muttered the big green animal as he nibbled Bruce's left ear with his warm, velvety muzzle, puffing his grassy hot breath into Bruce's face. Bruce noticed the beast's eyes were a deep dark brown as the horse stared at him up close. "Wake up. We're back," he snorted. It occurred to Bruce that his therapist Cecily was going to have a field day if he told her about this.

Bruce sputtered as the cold water poured off him starting at the top of his head and running down his body in torrents. "I think he's coming around," said Tony. Bruce opened his eyes. He had his left arm around Tony's shoulders and Natasha was supporting him on the other side. Tony was barefoot and had on jeans and a t-shirt while Nat had on one of Bruce's own shirts and the striped boxers he'd nearly destroyed earlier. Nat and Tony were almost as soaked as he was. He himself was, of course, very naked, but glad to note someone, probably Natasha, had removed the used condom. Thank God for small miracles. His muscles ached like he'd forgotten to stretch out or warm up for a week or just started some new routine that aggravated new sets of muscles that had never been used before, except it was from head to toe. His scalp and toes even hurt.

Bruce positioned his feet to support his own weight. As he shifted and tried to stand, Nat voiced her objection, "Bruce, stay still. We need to keep you under the water until your temperature comes down."

"Wouldn't it make more sense for me to sit on the shower bench, so you two don't get hypothermia?"

"Only if you don't pass out again and do a face-plant on the floor," she said.

"I'm feeling better. I can sit up on my own," he insisted.

Tony looked at Natasha, "Let's give it a try. I want to get the gamma spectrometer and some other equipment set up in the lab, so we can make a more detailed scan."

"Fine, let's move him," she said. "Friday, what is Dr. Banner's current core body temperature?"

"It's 101.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Down four degrees from his initial reading thirty-five minutes ago."

Bruce was able to support himself without much assistance from either of them. He settled back on the bench, and Natasha turned on the "rainforest" showerhead above him, which they very seldom used. Bruce thought it was a vast improvement over the "Biblical Deluge" setting he'd woken up under.

With Bruce safely ensconced, Tony gave Natasha a weighty look before turning to Bruce. "This is going to be all right, Bud. I think you're through the worst of it," and he gave Bruce a quick shoulder squeeze before he disappeared out the door. A few seconds later, they heard the outer hall door shut.

"So, what the hell happened?" Bruce asked Natasha as the water continued to rain down on him.

Natasha pushed her damp hair out of her face, "We're not sure. It appears that your temperature spiked as you were going into a Liminal state right after we had sex. Do you remember anything?"

"I remember you talking me through it, but I think I passed out," Bruce said.

"At first, I thought you might have had a stroke."

"No, I can move everything on both sides," he said flexing his hands and wiggling his toes. "No slurring of speech or facial paralysis, right?" He ran his hands over his face.

"Right, none. That's good. I had Friday get Tony. Luckily, he was in the lab and got here pretty fast. He thinks someone might have slipped you the Extremis virus. We're still not sure. That's why he's going to get the equipment set up. Also, we decided to call in Helen Cho."

Bruce grimaced, "I wish you hadn't bothered Helen. She'll have to report this. Is she already on the way?"

Natasha sighed, "Yes, she's coming with one or two of her assistants."

"Okay, we'll deal with it," he noted with a sigh of his own. He reached above his head and turned the water off. "Friday?"

"Yes, Dr. Banner."

"Please tell Mr. Stark I'm ambulatory. I'll put on some clothes and meet him in the lab in about 30 minutes."

"Consider it done, Doctor."

"Thanks, Friday. Come on, Nat. Let's get you out of those wet things," he said as he gingerly rose to his feet. "How long was I out?"

"A little over 45 minutes all together," she replied as she stepped to his side, ready to support him if he faltered.

"It didn't seem like it was that long."

"Oh, it was plenty long enough," she said with an audible catch in her voice.

He pulled her into a hug. "I am so sorry, Nat. I tried to do like you said, but there was something else happening that I could not control. It might have involved the Liminality, but I know something very different happened."

"Don't scare me like that again, you big dumb . . ." she buried her face in his shoulder and hugged him fiercely.

"It's okay," he said stroking her russet-red hair and pressing a kiss on the top of her damp head as he held her. "I'm fine. We'll find out what happened." He held her like that for several minutes, both shaking in silence. Neither of them were loud criers. They'd both learned very young that it got them too much attention that they didn't want if they let their hurts have voice. So they both breathed in and breathed out, in and out, and eventually they both quit shaking and felt a little better. Bruce unbuttoned the shirt Natasha had hastily thrown on and stopped to chuckle over the commandeered boxer shorts. "Those poor things have had one hell of day," he noted.

Natasha gave him an exasperated look as she kicked the clothing off. "Bruce Banner, master of understatement."

"Gee, thanks," he said as he grabbed her a fluffy towel from the linen closet and wrapped it around her.

"Bozhe moi, you're completely dry, Bruce," she said, running her hands over his back. Friday, what is Dr. Banner's temperature?"

"He appears to have stabilized at 101.2 degrees."

"I feel fine, Natasha. If it's just a fever, we'll see what it is. I've always run a half-degree higher than average. Let's just go ahead and get dressed," Bruce said as he retrieved the dirty clothes from the floor and deposited them in the laundry. He then used one of the soiled towels to mop up the prints and puddles.

Natasha followed Bruce into the laundry room; she watched him and shook her head, "You are either one fine actor or you are actually feeling okay now."

"Natasha, physically, I feel fine right now. I was sore, but the more I move, the better it feels." He opened the dryer and looked inside. "Do you want some sweats? That's what's in the dryer," he added, pulling clothes out into a basket and putting the wet load from the washer into the machine.

"I think I'll just re-dress in what I had on," Natasha said, continuing to watch him with befuddlement. She trailed him into the bedroom, and they both did some folding as they put on their clothes. She noted that he put on a pair of his uniform-type pants with an old blue pullover, which was probably a good idea since they had no clue what would happen next.

After replacing her shredded underwear with a new pair, Natasha collected her clothes from earlier and put them back on. Bruce's ruined shirt she threw in the trash with her panties. If it had had his blood or semen on it, she'd have put it in the biohazard container to be burned; otherwise, Bruce insisted on washing those sort of "contaminated" things separately, despite every "normal" or "safe" or "acceptable" reading they took.

"Well, I'll be damned," remarked Bruce as he slipped his feet into the loafers he had worn earlier. "Just a little looser fit. I'll have to remember this brand the next time I buy some shoes."

"C'mon you clothes horse, Tony will be champing at the bit," Natasha urged.

"It's funny you'd say that. While I was out, I dreamed about this big green horse from Marc Chagall's _The Blue Circus_. Gee, it was weird. I didn't know where I was, but he carried me back after my dad tried to make me keep some coins that weren't mine. I fell from a helicopter like I did over Harlem. The horse told me he was sorry and woke me up. At the beginning I was holding your hand and floating like in one of those earlier Chagall paintings. The horse said it didn't have a name, but it brought me back to you."

"You are such a dork, even when you're dreaming," she said affectionately, brushing the curls back from his forehead. She slipped her hand in his and pulled him up from his seat on the edge of the bed where he'd been putting on his socks and shoes.

"Just a second," he said, "I'll get the medical bag out of the second bedroom." Bruce retrieved the old leather bag because they were no doubt going to have to take samples to analyze if they were going to figure out what had happened. As he turned to leave, he hesitated and set the bag down on the bed. He sometimes used the room as a study. There was a medium-sized desk and one wall was covered in built-in hardwood bookshelves. He hadn't completely filled them in yet; in fact, there were some boxes from long-term storage still stacked in the corner, waiting to be unpacked. He didn't have any of his first books: those had been lost in the confusion and chaos after his mother's death and never made the move with him to his aunt's house. He studied the labels on the boxes and found one that said, "coffee table books". Bruce pulled it out and opened it up, selecting a couple of nature and landscape photograph collections and another with pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope. He studied the shelves and selected one about chest high and moved the old science textbooks placed there to a different section and replaced them with the others he'd just picked out. He scrutinized the shelf for a moment, rubbing his chin, and then took a notecard from the desk and wrote "Hulk's" on it with a marker and placed it on the shelf. On a whim, he added a pack of Post-it Notes and one of his nicer oversized pens next to it. He pressed his lips together and nodded, "This will do for now." He grabbed the doctor's bag up from the bed and closed the door as he left.

Natasha came out of the bathroom with her hair still damp but in a little less disarray. "Found what you needed?" she asked.

"Yah," he said, "for now at least." He intertwined his fingers with hers, held them up to his lips and kissed them. She still looked a little worried in the depths of her eyes, so he smiled and waggled his eyebrows at her. That always worked when she got too concerned about him. Natasha finally smiled and shook her head. Goofy solved a lot of problems around here. "Time to go," he said, and they headed out the apartment door together. They walked down to the main lab, holding hands and gently "on purpose" bumping hips and shoulders as they went.


	27. Chapter 27

27: The Games We Can't Avoid

Tony had set up some of the equipment he'd used when Aldrich Killian had infected Pepper with Extremis a few years before. Bruce recognized the thermographic scanner and some other pieces of high-end tech equipment, but there was a sizable new piece to the side that he didn't recognize. Bruce set his medical bag down on one of the lab benches and walked over to study what he guessed was an open-design scanner, which Tony was currently working on.

Before Bruce could ask, Tony said, "Happy early birthday, Bruce. Say hello to PET/CT+—which as you know but Natasha might not—stands for Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Plus, the diagnostic scanner of your dreams. I'm running the calibrations and software diagnostics, so we should have it up and running before Cho gets here."

"Okay, so it can track various kinds of radiation and convert them into images, right?" Bruce asked.

"Well, even more fun than that, it can combine multiple types of scans, so it does single photon emission computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, in addition to the PET, all at the same time. By combining these, it allows the information from," here Tony made air quote signs, "'multiple exams to be correlated and interpreted on one image, leading to more precise information and accurate diagnoses' or at least that's what the manual says. I prefer the term 'image fusion' myself. When we convert this to 3D holograms, it's going to be awesome."

"Okay, so we're talking blood chemistry, metabolism, circulation, and oxygen usage, etc. in addition to the various types of radiation, right?"

"Throw in neurological function and that about covers it. The other cool part is the scanner itself is open," Tony pointed out the adjustable U-shaped section of the machine, "and adjustable for larger patients up to eight and half feet tall and three feet thick."

"Impressive," said Bruce, running his hands over the scanner section by section before his joined Tony at the console.

"It can also compare multiple scans over time and between individuals, which is what we are going to do with some of Pepper's old scans to see if someone managed to slip you an Extremis mickey. We should be able to get what we have of your old data added to it as well."

Bruce nodded and stroked his chin with his right hand while his left arm hugged his middle, "That sounds like a good strategy. What would you like me to do?"

"This thing is running itself, so let's talk about samples, Bud."

Bruce did his best not to flinch instantly. He knew this conversation was going to have to happen. He just didn't want to have to get anymore defensive than was necessary. "Okay, we brought the medical bag, so we can take a blood sample."

"Good, that's clearly where we need to start. Now, I'm going to need a baseline sample to make a comparison, so please tell me you have something that answers this description squirreled away somewhere."

"Yes, I do have such a thing; in fact, I have several such things dating back as far as a few years ago. However, I've been very studious about not mentioning this to Helen," Bruce said and gave Tony a guilty sideways glance.

"Okay," said Tony, stroking his jaw. "Would you be willing to let me look at one or two of them?"

"I'll willingly let you sample one from a month ago and one from three years ago, but that's it because we both know everything short of the actual sample is going to end up with Cho and her team. I don't begrudge the data, but you know how important it is to keep these isolated. If it's clear there are several samples out there, it just makes whoever has them a more attractive target. Helen may think her people can handle it, but we all know that's not the case."

"Understood, Bruce. I _am_ the one who burned the midnight oil with you decontaminating rubble after that little fracas downtown."

"I know and I am forever grateful and waiting for the call to help you bury a body in reciprocation for it, too," Bruce acknowledged.

Tony smiled, "And here I'd thought you'd forgotten our first date."

This drew a good-natured huff and an eye roll from Bruce who had pulled up a tutorial for the PET/CT+ and was skimming through it. They both continued to prep the equipment for several minutes in silence. Neither of them had noticed that Natasha had slipped out of the lab until she returned with an insulated case used for storing and transporting blood sample vials.

"Here you go," she said, handing the case to Tony. Have you drawn a fresh sample yet?"

"Uh, no," said Bruce as he shut the tutorial down. He opened up the medical bag and laid out the equipment he'd need.

"Do you want me to do it?" Natasha asked.

"Are you feeling up to being a phlebotomist today?" Bruce returned, knowing full well that she had a talent for sticking veins on the first try thanks to numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. missions when she'd helped out the medics.

"I don't have a medical certificate, but you know I can start you an IV or take a blood sample."

"Well, I don't have a certificate either, but . . . you know, I do have the coursework completed. It's just not under my real name, and it was an online program. I'm not planning on completing the practicum part any time soon," Bruce rattled off out of the blue.

"What?" Natasha and Tony both said almost simultaneously.

"While I was stuck in the safe houses earlier this summer, I completed the online coursework for the equivalent of an Emergency Medical Tech. Certificate. I figured I'd been doing the work long enough without a license is all. It was mostly just review of what I already knew." The other two looked at him with a bit of annoyance and skepticism, "C'mon, I'm trying to go legit," Bruce complained. "They were willing to accept my time at the hospital in Nairobi, but … what?"

"You've had two months to say something, but you're just now telling us?" Tony said.

Bruce shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands in surrender, "It slipped my mind, sorry. We have been a little busy."

"Well, it's good to know," said Natasha who'd had Bruce treat and suture her up so many times she'd lost count, but she was pretty sure Bruce knew the exact number.

"So, when do you get the license to practice internal medicine and general surgery or are you going for an OB/GYN?" Tony asked, ramping up the sarcasm.

"Lock me up with nothing better to do for three months and find out," replied Bruce. He was smiling, but Natasha thought he sounded much more sardonic than normal. That got her attention. _Do you want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff?_ She had observed before that Bruce could get vicious when his lip started to curl like it was now during a "discussion" like this. Something wasn't quite right.

 _"_ Okay, paperwork or not, I can probably do a better job drawing blood for you than you can on yourself, Bruce," Natasha said. "Hand over an arm unless you want me to try the back of your hand."

Bruce complied since she certainly had a point, and it wasn't just the needle in her hand. They didn't need blood, especially his, contaminating the lab. He'd taken plenty of his own samples and it could get messy doing it one-handed. If he didn't heal up so quickly, he would probably have scars and marks on his left arm like a heroin addict. Natasha put the rubber tourniquet above the elbow on his left arm, Bruce did the fist thing, and she felt and thumped a few spots and soon had a couple of good veins located. She tore open an alcohol pad and wiped down Bruce's best vein on his inner left forearm. Natasha then put on a pair of latex gloves and nonchalantly slipped the needle into the vein on the first try. "Are two vials going to be enough for now?"

Bruce and Tony looked at each other. "Two is good, right?" said Bruce. Tony nodded. God knew Cho was going to want more taken when she arrived.

Natasha soon had blood samples in the two vials. Bruce grabbed a gauze square and held it in place and she pulled out the needle and recapped and sealed it up. "Darn, we're all out of the Bob the Builder Band-Aids. How about a Hello Kitty?" she kidded.

"Give it two seconds, and it will have healed up anyway," said Bruce.

"Yah, better put on the Band-Aid. We know you're going to need all the sympathy you can get out of Helen," said Tony.

"I need all I can get period," said Bruce. He looked at his two closest friends, "You both know this may turn into a knockdown drag out when it comes to samples, right?"

Natasha gave him a small nod and Tony bit his lower lip. "You're going to have to give her something," Tony said.

"I'm giving her all the data they want. The Agreements give me authority over my own bio samples, which is beyond what anyone normally has. She and her team can look at them all they want here, but no blood, fluids, or tissue samples leave the labs," Bruce stated flatly. "I'm not changing my mind."

"You are practically asking them to move in and study you," Tony joked as he shook his head, trying to lighten the mood up a bit.

Bruce gave him an exasperated look. "You both know why this is of the _utmost_ importance. Just back me up, okay?"

Natasha had quietly stepped up to Bruce's side. She understood his fears and frustration, "Of course we have your back. I saw what Dr. Sterns did in his lab with just one small blood sample to synthesize and replicate. We also know what that did to him and Emile Blonsky. I'm with you Bruce," she said while looking at Tony, "there is no way any samples are leaving this building."

"I'm with you all the way, too," said Tony, "but let me play devil's advocate for a moment. You seem to be feeling okay right now, but what if one of these seizures or whatever it is happens again? Are you going to be prepared to let some of what you have been withholding go if it's needed? If you're incapacitated, what then?"

"Jennifer has my Power of Attorney, which has explicit instructions. If my status changes," Bruce looked at Natasha with a fleeting smile playing across his lips, "she has the documents already drawn up." This was news to Natasha, but she limited her reaction to taking Bruce's hand and giving it a squeeze.

Tony noticed, but he chose not to do any of the needling he might have; Bruce was just too keyed up. Well, if he couldn't help with that, maybe Natasha could? "Okay, from the legal standpoint, that sounds acceptable, but you two need to talk about any other 'assets' you might have socked away somewhere." Tony picked up one of the newly taken blood samples, "The last time I gave blood, they made me drink orange juice and eat a cookie. Why don't you two go find some cookies and OJ or grab dinner, maybe a little dessert, while I get some of the Extremis pathology started? Cho and company should be here in a matter of hours, so go do whatever needs to be done while you have a chance."

Natasha looked at Tony quizzically and picked up the other fresh vial of Bruce's blood. "Okay, that sounds like a good strategy," she said.

"Are you sure we can't help you with this?" asked Bruce, feeling a little puzzled.

"No, I'm the only one who can access the Extremis data, so I have to set this part up. By the time you're back the machine will be ready for us to scan you."

"Aren't you hungry?" Bruce questioned.

"Not now. Not yet. Bring me a sandwich or something when you come back. You know what I like, Bruce. Hell, Natasha even knows what I like. Surprise me."

"Sure, will do," said Bruce. He knew he was missing something, but clearly Tony wanted the lab to himself for a bit. He took Natasha's hand and they headed up the steps to his lab where she added the new vial to the collection in the cryogenic storage unit and reengaged the security system.

"Hey, grab your glasses out of your lab coat while you're here. You haven't worn them in a couple of days. That's got to be giving you a headache."

"Oh, right," said Bruce, fishing them out of the white coat's front pocket. He gave one more backward glance to the larger lab, and they headed down the hall for their apartment.

"Would you please tell me what just went over my head?" Bruce asked Natasha.

"Well, he definitely wanted us out of there, but he didn't want to spell out why. It probably had something to do with the Extremis data and wanting to rule it out before Helen gets here. I don't think you're the only one who doesn't like to share medical information. If he's being a little protective for Pepper's sake, I can't fault him."

"Me either," remarked Bruce. "I'd just as soon not drag anything to do with Extremis into our little circus. I don't think I've been exposed. I'm sure that's not what this is, but I understand we have to rule it out." He looped his left arm around her shoulder as they walked down the quiet corridor, and as they stopped in front of their door, his hand slipped down to her hip as she punched in the code.

Natasha gave him a side-glance, "Doing okay there, Doc?" Usually, he waited until they were at least inside the door before his hands got this busy.

"Uh, yah," Bruce said, noticing that his hand had wandered lower to cup and knead her shapely backside, and he was definitely handling her more aggressively than normal. He almost jumped with the realization and removed his hand a little faster than he'd intended. "Hey, did you even eat lunch because I'm pretty sure I didn't," he said, changing the subject.

"I had a beer on the roof with Logan before he left, but you and I got a little too 'busy' too fast. I guess we better act like adults and feed ourselves."

"C'mon, I'll make us some pasta mac and cheese—the adult kind, not the one in the blue box. It'll be reasonably fast and will have plenty of carbs and fats and other good stuff."

"I'm all for the good stuff," she said with a grin. Natasha put together a green salad while she left Bruce to the stove. He tied on the apron the Bartons had given them as an apartment-warming gift. It had "Kiss the Cook" printed below a cute Hulk and Black Widow chibi-style cartoon. Hulk had a chef's hat on and was blushing because Natasha was kissing him. They'd both worked in kitchens over the years as part of their various covers. Bruce knew his way around a grill and stovetop, having worked at a few mom-and-pop places and greasy-spoon diners, while Natasha had been a prep cook and sous chef during undercover assignments. She watched Bruce sorting through ingredients in the refrigerator and lining them up on the counter while the pasta cooked on the stove. He always melted Jarlsberg cheese in when he did the béchamel sauce, and she'd seen him put nutmeg in several times when he'd made it before, so they really weren't "secret" ingredients any longer, but it was still an inside joke with them when he'd pretend to sneak them. She was betting on snap peas and prosciutto being in there somewhere, too.

Until she'd seen Bruce in the kitchen, she'd not really believed he'd been a cook. For one thing, he didn't have the scars most people who've run a grill or a deep fryer do, sometimes up and down their arms, but after seeing him organize, she had to admit that labs and kitchens had similar skill requirements. He also had a talent for remembering recipes once he'd fixed them a time or two. At the moment, he was draining the water out of the pasta after checking with her to make sure it was al dente. Next, he already had the cheese sauce ready, so it would only require assembly and a short trip under the broiler. She'd have eaten it without the time under the broiler, but this was something he'd been taught was "the right way to do it" by his aunt before he went off to school. He was flexible enough to accept putting breadcrumbs, crushed crackers, or potato chips on top, but like it or not, "toasty goodness" was going to happen in the oven before it was going on the table. She'd learned that was an AS thing.

"May I get you a drink?" she asked as he slid the casserole dish under the broiler.

"Just water for me, if you please," he said as he set the timer.

Natasha poured them both tall glasses of water, and she walked his around the island to hand to him, "On the rocks. Chilled, not stirred."

He smiled, "Thank you, Agent Romanoff," and he took a long drink from it. She stepped closer and he set the glass down on the island countertop. "Let's just eat in here," Bruce said and grabbed some forks from the flatware drawer.

"Sounds easier to me," she said, and slid the salad bowls to their proper spots beside the forks before pulling out napkins and placing them under the utensils.

"Ten more minutes," Bruce said and leaned back against the counter. Natasha settled beside him and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Okay, I'm not hurting like I was, but I'm feeling very . . . uh, impulsive."

"Like what kind of 'impulsive'?" she asked.

"Like 'I can't quit thinking about grabbing your butt' impulsive."

"What else are you feeling impulsive about, besides my butt?" she asked, turning her head to look at him with her eyebrow raised.

"You may want to wait till after we've eaten for an answer to that," he said.

She shrugged, "Okay, let's eat first and then talk about it." She turned and took up her bowl of salad then perched on her favorite barstool at the corner of the counter. Bruce did the same and sat at a right angle to her. She slipped her right foot out of the shoe and ran her toe up Bruce's left calf. He gave a slight start, but passed her a brief look that said, "Go ahead."

Natasha wasn't sure why she was doing this, why she was pushing him, especially after a day like they'd had, but the way he was now staring at her made it clear he wanted her attentions. This didn't strike her as that odd—God knows neither of them had ever said no to the other—but they both were probably just running on adrenalin at this point. They ought to be in an exhaustion-induced coma, not flirting and eye-fucking each other like they were now. He had turned a few more degrees in her direction, and her foot was now in his lap with her toes teasing and massaging his crotch.

The oven timer went off and they both jumped like a spell had been broken. As she withdrew her foot, Natasha squeezed her eyes closed and opened them as she shook her head to clear it. Bruce was shaking his head, too, as he got up to check the dish in the oven. Taking up a pair of oven mitts he'd laid by the stove, he pulled the casserole dish out, deftly closed the oven door with his foot, and placed the fragrant bubbling dish on a hot pad he'd positioned on the counter.

"What just happened?" Natasha asked.

"I don't know," Bruce said quietly, "but we both felt it. This wasn't just in my head."

"It's like a compulsion," she said. "I wanted to rip your clothes off. I still do, but we're both going to drop if we can't get what we're doing reprioritized a bit." She moved to the opposite side of the island so there was some distance between them. "Do me a favor, Bruce, and turn the exhaust fan over the stove up to 'high'."

He obliged and looked at her, "You think it's pheromones?"

"That's my very unscientific guess," she said. "Let's sit down and eat while we both have a handle on ourselves. We need to keep talking."

"Okay, tell me what you found out about Elk Ford," he suggested. "Did I kill anyone?"

 _Oh, God,_ she thought, _he's probably been thinking about this off and on all day when there wasn't an emergency_. "No, it was all property damage on your part. There was a group of three enhanced individuals who confronted you on the street. You took the party out of town pretty quickly, but a few empty vehicles were tossed around along the way. The other three had firearms or other weapons, and used them. Those accounted for the injuries to three law enforcement officers: two were serious, but no fatalities. At least one of the thugs could toss vehicles around, too, and that's where the rest of the property damage came from when some storefronts were hit. Do you remember any of this?"

"Little bits and pieces. I remember there was a ragdoll abandoned in the street. Did any civilians get hurt?"

"No children. Some people in a diner you'd just left had minor injuries, but it was from flying glass and wood splinters; a whip-like weapon one of the thugs had shattered the front windows."

Bruce almost slumped with relief. He'd been sure he'd killed people and was thinking the worst. "Okay, that's a lot better than what I'd pictured," he said, running a hand down his face. "Good, good… that's actually quite a relief." He finally dug into his salad.

Natasha wanted to walk around the counter and hug him to her, but she didn't dare to get that close yet. In the back of her mind, she was imagining taking his clothes off and wanted to start by ripping his shirt right down the front.

"Hey, Beautiful, finish your salad," Bruce said, trying not to leer too suggestively. He couldn't help but notice she'd been sitting there for over a half minute with her salad-laden fork paused halfway to her mouth, and her dilated eyes were fastened on him like a lioness hunting a gazelle. She gave him an embarrassed grin and started eating again. He figured the mac was cooled down enough to not deliver a third-degree burn, so Bruce got up and pulled down a couple of flat pasta bowls from the shelves and retrieved a serving spoon from a drawer. He set his salad bowl in the sink and proceeded to spoon up servings of gooey pasta for both of them. He carefully slid hers across the counter to her. "Still pretty hot," he warned. He pulled out a food container from another cabinet and filled it for Tony.

Natasha had been watching Bruce's ass since he stood up, but she kept her gaze above the waist once she realized what she was doing. She looked at her half-finished glass of water and considered dumping it over her own head. After Bruce scooted her serving of tempting pasta in front of her, she blew on a fork full, trying to concentrate on it. She'd guessed right about the peas and prosciutto. Bruce finally sat down again and did his own blowing and tasting. Soon, they were making eye contact again and grinning at how goofy they were, blowing and trying not to burn their mouths. "This is really good, by the way," she said.

"Thanks," he replied between bites. "There's more if you want some."

"I'm good. Should I fix Tony up a salad?"

"Nah, I'd bet he drank his power greens already today. I think there's a single serving of the tomatoes in balsamic you fixed yesterday in the fridge. Will that work?"

"Sure," Natasha said as she gathered up the rest of the dirty bowls. She took the long way around the island and loaded the dishes into the washer. "Are you finished? I'll wrap up the leftovers if you are."

"Yah, done," he said and licked the last of the sauce off his fork like a little kid except much more suggestively. She pictured him licking more than the pasta bowl and swallowed hard, forcing herself to keep moving. He placed his pasta bowl and the remaining prep dishes and pan into the washer while Natasha put the wrapped casserole in the refrigerator. Her hands were starting to shake with tension.

She knew before she shut the appliance's door that Bruce was right behind her. Natasha could feel the heat coming off him and the smell of musk and a milky sweetness from him enveloped her and she arched her back, shivering with anticipation. His hands were almost hot as he placed them on her hips and started nibbling at the back of her neck. She turned around, and their eyes locked on each other's. Natasha immediately noted his irises were fully dilated again, making his eyes look huge and dark, but also very vulnerable. "Forgive me," she said and launched herself at him, seizing him with both hands then touching his face and pulling him into a hungry, aggressive kiss, which he quickly reciprocated. His arms went around her, drawing her tight against him. She turned him and backed him up against the refrigerator where she ran her right hand down his chest and abs to pull his shirt up. "Too many clothes," she growled as she kissed him and started working his shirt off him while still pinning him to the appliance.

Bruce grinned as he helped her take off the pullover and dropped it on the floor. He slipped his hand behind her head, drawing her close, and kissed her deeply on the mouth. She pressed her body against his—he was so incredibly warm—and rubbed as much skin on skin as possible. She pulled back a moment, "Still too many clothes!" she complained. He laughed and kissed her again, and she caught his lip between her teeth and grinned back.

"My turn," he said when she'd let his lip loose, and he kissed lower and lower as he unbuttoned her blouse. She ran her fingers through his hair and sighed, "Oh, Bruce, what are you doing to me?"

"I'm kissing you," he said as he planted a wet kiss on her stomach. He slipped her shirt off her shoulders. "I may lick you next, but soon I'm going to fuck you," Bruce said while looking at her with those dark bedroom eyes.

Natasha leaned into him again as she worked her hands into his waistband and smoothly slid his uniform pants down over his hips as he toed off his shoes. The underwear was built into the garment similar to swim trunks, so he was now completely exposed to her: the dark trail of hair from his chest, down to his abs and the nest of pubic hair and his growing erection just begged for her to touch him. She kissed his throat while her hand wandered, caressing and touching him, massaging his back, his hips, and that beautiful ass. Natasha's right hand then went to his crotch, and she wrapped her fingers around the base of his shaft and stroked him to fullness.

Bruce groaned as they continued touching, and he reached down and grabbed her ass with his left hand and squeezed while with his right he unfastened and unzipped her slacks. He eased her pants and panties below her hips and she squirmed out of them and kicked them off along with her shoes. Bruce ran his hand down past her toned stomach and massaged her mons, teasing her before he slipped his finger into her wetness, circling her clit until she moaned. He penetrated her with his finger and she thrust her hips into him, so he gripped her inner arch tighter and inserted a second finger, moving them in and out, fucking her, and making her moan. This was good, but both of them wanted more. It didn't even enter his head how reckless they felt.

Natasha had worked Bruce until he was hard and ready. He stopped fingering her, and he picked her up. Natasha wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as he settled her onto his hips and then penetrated her with his hard cock. He dismissed the distant voice that was screaming out a warning and shoved it to the back of his consciousness. "I know we're going to regret this later," he whispered as he thrust into her, "but I have to fuck you now."

"I want you to fuck me. We both think too much. Just fuck me, Bruce," Natasha breathed into his ear. He shifted his grip to better support her thighs and hips, and then he turned and repositioned the two of them so her back was against the wall. Being in her felt so good, so right, and he did not want to stop. This time nothing was going to prevent him from getting what he wanted.

Natasha held him tight, breathing in his heady scent. She brushed back the curls behind his left ear and bit into the base of his neck before marking him with a dark rosette of a bruise. He breathed in sharply, completely turned on by what she was doing. He caught his breath and thrust into her, pushing her against the wall. Natasha tightened her grip around him, working with his movements as he slid in and out of her. "Harder," she said, and her fingers dug into his back, nails furrowing his flesh. She gasped as he rammed into her, putting his strong legs into the effort. "Yes, Bruce, I want you. Don't hold back. I want you to fill me up." He bit his lower lip in concentration and slammed his hips into her again and again. "Yes, yes, yes!" she chanted in his ear. She could feel herself coming and held onto him tighter, shuddering as her inner walls spasmed and contracted around him. "Oh, my Bruce, sweet, sweet Bruce," she moaned.

He continued thrusting into her. She felt so tight and good as she orgasmed, and he came and filled her as he held her close, "Mine, my Natasha!" They stayed there pressed against the kitchen wall catching their breath for a few minutes, letting their bodies recover before easing apart.

"What, what have I…" Bruce started as the hormone and endorphin overload began to burn off all too quickly.

"Hush, what _we_ have done is have unprotected sex. We might have been a little impaired, but we're adults, Bruce. And we're fine and we both needed it."

"But the radiation. I may have poisoned you!"

"What radiation, Bruce? Use the app. There is none." She retrieved her phone from the island counter and scanned them both. "See. There is nothing to protect me from. We're both sterile, Bruce, so that doesn't matter. Not that such a thing would ever be unwanted if it were even possible."

He shook his head and started to pace, "It's not completely gone. It's there when I turn and it's always in my bones. What if there was a spike?"

"There was no spike. You were you the whole time. Unless you're headed into a full Liminal state, there hasn't been a gamma surge for months," Natasha pointed out. "Did you see the scans from earlier today? The spikes are leveling out. It's getting to the point that you have to transform enough to shift size for the gamma to go above background or 'acceptable risk'." She put her hand on his shoulder, "My love, there was no bullet to dodge." Bruce still looked skeptical, but he nodded. She could see he wasn't ready to let go of his self-conception that he was toxic and dangerous. It was going to take more time. In the interim, they'd keep scanning for as long as it took to convince him.

Bruce put his hand to his forehead and rubbed his temples. "Well, how did _this_ just happen?" he asked as he gestured to the two of them. "It wasn't the Other Guy. Hulk had nothing to do with this."

Natasha stepped close again and took his forearm and raised it above his head. "Don't tell me you can't smell you," she said. "It's not sweat or body odor. You smell like I could eat you for desert or roll on you like catnip."

He looked a little surprised as he smelled himself. "I guess it crept up on me. You're right; there is something very different. Sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, caramel, burnt sugar, butterscotch, flan, egg custard, crème Brule?" he asked, partly in jest and clearly flummoxed.

"In my opinion, you smell like caramel, the really good kind like they have at the bookstore that's wrapped in wax paper," she said. "We probably ought to get a sweat sample before you shower off."

"Helen is going to love this," he said pressing his lips together in resignation. "It's probably related to the episode earlier today."

"My money is on there being a connection," she said and stroked the side of his face. "You are such a seduction machine, Dr. Banner." That coaxed a blushing smile out of him. "It was probably a good thing we acted on this. My head is a lot clearer now."

"Mine, too," he added. He pressed his lips together and then chuckled.

"What?" she asked.

"I think I may know why Tony was acting oddly earlier. It wasn't necessarily because he wanted the lab to himself—though he probably did. I think he wanted us by ourselves to make sure everything is still okay between us. This metaphor is a chestnut, but we needed to get back in the saddle again since we'd both been thrown, so to speak, while having sex. And it was probably a good idea to do it before Cho and her assistants arrived."

Natasha nodded her head and laughed, "Yah, I think you may be onto something there, Doc."

"Well, we didn't disappoint then," he noted and they both snickered. Bruce then looked a bit troubled as more complications occurred to him. "Geeze, do you think Tony picked up on the pheromones?"

"Hmm, I didn't recognize them till we were back here in the apartment," she said, "but he might be more sensitive to them on a subconscious level."

"Oh, wow, this is going to be soooo much fun," he said as his normal humorous cynicism crept into his voice. He rubbed his hand down his face, "I wonder if this 'innovation' is an anomaly or if it's a permanent development?"

"Good question. I guess we'll have to wait and see." She stroked his curls back from his forehead, "Caramel and lust are a pretty tempting combination. I wouldn't mind if it were permanent, but let's just hope I won't have to pull anyone off you."

Bruce rolled his eyes, "Great, just the kind of attention I don't want from anyone except you."

"I'd rather beat a few people off than have you smelling like dead fish or something. Come on," she picked up the clothing they'd discarded on the floor, "let's take that sample and get cleaned up before Helen and our guests arrive. Tony might be ready for some dinner, and the scanner is probably ready, too."


	28. Chapter 28

28: The Games We Make of Ourselves

 _Still in the flashback to mid August_.

With the old and new data loaded and the comparisons run, Tony felt it was safe to say an Extremis infection was not what was happening with Bruce's metabolism. This was both a good and a bad thing. He was convinced gamma poisoning and Extremis might have been a lethal combination, even for Bruce, especially if it had happened shortly after the gamma exposure. Even now, however, it would not have been a pleasant experience for anyone within a hundred-mile radius if Bruce's body had rejected it. Things would have been even worse down the line, Tony suspected, if his friend's body had accepted Extremis. Killian, after all, hadn't been that bad of person until he'd come under its influence. Tony shuddered to think what might happen to Bruce with his fractured psyche if the wrong faction emerged. Thank God or whomever, they weren't going to have to find out today. Tony was also incredibly relieved that Pepper wasn't going be dragged into this and that he wasn't somehow responsible for exposing Bruce or Natasha to the virus because it had inexplicably gotten out of containment or Pepper had somehow become a Typhoid Mary. In short, he was damned relieved it wasn't Extremis.

On the flipside, that meant they were now in completely uncharted territory and "here there be monsters" all right. Thanks to what happened to Pepper, Tony knew intimately how to treat Extremis, and what he was studying in Bruce was quite different, but potentially just as catastrophic. True, there were a few similarities, but so far it appeared what had initiated the episode had come entirely from within Bruce. In fact, Bruce's current state only looked like a response to a virus or pathogen because Bruce's immune system was currently revving up with the type of speed and temperature rise normally reserved for repelling an attack on the system. In reality, there was no such normal trigger present—no virus, no bacterial infection, not even an allergic reaction.

Tony had long theorized that Bruce's experiment had not been a failure. Bruce had been looking for a way to prevent and cure radiation poisoning, and Ross's revived super-soldier program had—unbeknownst to Bruce—cooped his research. Bruce's part of the experiment had worked, but what he hadn't counted on was the sabotaged equipment that caused the gamma overdose. What Ross hadn't expected was Bruce's mutation and how extensive, uncontrollable, and fractured the changes would be. Both thought the experiment was a failure, a catastrophe, a "game over" fiasco because they were so locked into the horror and disappointment of the present that neither saw far enough into the future to recognize the whole experiment was still in progress. The game, in fact, was _not_ over. Bruce, on some level, or at least his body had refused to say this was done. The experiment was, in fact, still in progress to this very moment.

At some point his body had begun to sequester and store the radiation, primarily in his bones, according to the disappointingly spotty data Tony had been able to collect on Bruce via hacks on S.H.I.E.L.D. and Ross's unit (Sorry, Helen, obviously you can't have it, scrubbed or not). Tony theorized that was the first step, and he was sure it wasn't the last one. He suspected that once the sequestering and storage of the radiation had stabilized, metabolizing it and making efficient use of it would follow. Well, that was Tony's guess where this "reprograming" of Bruce's system was headed. The process wasn't complete, not by a long shot, but he was relatively sure the sequestering and storing phase had been going on for years now, as if it were the initial stage that had been tested and modified and refined over time.

Currently, Bruce's system seemed to be experimenting with how to metabolize the gamma radiation and how to use it. That helped to explain the temperature elevation, but that was only Tony's working hypothesis. They really needed more data, and they needed it from more than just Bruce. He had never been completely scanned during or after a transition, but Tony hoped to remedy that situation as soon as possible. If he couldn't, he hoped that Natasha might be able to help.

Tony knew from experience when it came to working with Bruce, you weren't really just working with Bruce because the man was a package deal. Everyone knew about the Big Guy: that went without saying. However, Tony suspected there was something deeper inside Bruce at work most of the time, something that he occasionally tapped into on a conscious level, but at other times he seemed to be completely detached from. Bruce dealt with and lived in the real world, but parts of him seemed to live only in his head. At least that was how Tony tried to explain some odd things he'd observed. For example, Bruce was right handed and wrote in a neat script that would fit within a grid; however, Tony had seen him writing out experimental equations and correcting his own work with his left hand in a very different freeform script and occasionally a blocky print as well that he wrote with either hand. At first, Tony had just chalked it up as one of his friend's quirky behaviors, but when he saw Bruce puzzling over some of the notations and asked where they'd come from, Bruce could only vaguely answer, "I'm not sure. I probably made them when I was tired," when Tony had just seen him switch from using one hand and script to another only a few minutes before. Tony hadn't brought it up since, but he had his theories on this as well as what part the autism might play. In the meantime, as long as Bruce was getting along okay, Tony saw no reason to confront him.

At the moment, Tony was stuffing his face with excellent pasta and walking Bruce through the Extremis comparisons in hopes of convincing him to subject himself to more scans. Bruce was rather enjoying the fact that Tony wasn't able to talk with his mouth full. He'd just finished tolerating one full-body scan (and another blood sample and several other samples Helen requested since they were still in transit), but he knew one set of data was never enough for Tony.

"Look, I know where this conversation is going, and I don't think transitioning in the lab is a good idea," Bruce said.

Tony wolfed down the last few bites and held up a finger to get Bruce to pause as he swallowed. "Just hear me out, Buddy. We have the equipment here and it's ready. You don't need to call up the Big Guy, just tap into the beginning of the launce sequence."

"That's not how it works, Tony," Bruce noted while shaking his head.

"You've said before that it's easier to go Liminal if the Big Guy is tired, right? So why wouldn't now be a good time?"

"Because, for one, he and I have both been pretty much on the edge all day. I could probably access the Liminal state, but my control is not going to be good."

"It doesn't have to be good. All you need to do is get into it a little bit and come back."

"That's still not how it works, Tony."

"Then tell me how it works, so we can work with it," Tony pleaded.

Bruce looked over at Natasha who had been sitting very quietly on a lab stool near the door and burying her face in a StarkPad. She looked up and smiled serenely, "Go ahead, Bruce. He asked for it. Just tell him."

Bruce flushed scarlet, but he took a deep breath and started. "There is probably more than one way to do this, but the surest way to get to Liminal is for me to get stimulated, sexually stimulated. That's probably not going to happen here, especially not with an audience set to arrive any time now."

"I'll leave and I can keep Team Cho entertained," Tony said. "I can set the machine to run its sequence, and all one of you has to do is tell Friday when you're ready."

Bruce gave Tony one of his stubborn glares, but he didn't say, "No."

"Bruce, we need this data. If we're going to have a prayer of getting anything close to an answer, it has to be now."

Natasha had come up behind Bruce and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I'll support whatever you decide, Love, but I know you can do this," she told him.

Bruce turned and looked into her eyes, and he saw nothing but love and confidence there. "Okay," he said quietly, "go ahead and set it up, Tony."

"Done," his friend said. "Friday, I'll be cleaning up. Let me know when Team Cho is five minutes out so I can meet them."

"Certainly, Boss," the User Interface replied. "Ms. Romanoff, Dr. Banner, let me know when you're ready."

Bruce and Natasha held each other in silence for a few moments before he let her go and pulled his shirt off once again and kicked off his shoes. "You know," he said as he positioned himself in the scanner, "if the Big Guy is recovered, he's going to want to see you, and I'm not going to be able to change his mind."

"It's okay, Bruce. We're due for some face time. Don't aggravate him; just let him come out, and we'll have what we need," she said with a reassuring smile. "It's a win-win."

"Friday," Bruce said to the UI, "I think we're set. I'll do this as slowly as I'm able."

"Scan sequence set. The sequences will take two minutes apiece to complete, Dr. Banner."

Natasha stood near Bruce's left shoulder where she could watch both him and the control panel. She'd gone over the tutorial and the manual while the guys argued, but she was glad Friday was running the scans, so she was available for Bruce and probably the Big Guy. She'd watched Tony scan Bruce earlier, and she was hoping the Big Guy had picked up enough of the process not to get rattled by the machinery. Everything was adjusted to accommodate Hulk's size, but it was still going to be an odd and slightly noisy spot for him, especially without a thorough preparation.

Bruce looked up at her and she watched as his eyes changed color and the machinery began to hum and click as it took multiple simultaneous scans. She held his gaze as his eyes went from brown to hazel as they had earlier in the day and his brow furrowed in concentration as he held himself at the edge of Liminality. She smiled at him proudly as he managed the first step and the scans finished up their first round. She squeezed his hand, which was beginning to slide into a mottled gray green and gradually enlarge, "I knew you could do this."

Bruce smiled up at her and started to apply some of his breathing exercises to keep the transition as slow and even as he could, but it was clear as his body started to enlarge that he was feeling more and more discomfort and pain. Natasha could hear his tissues slowly ripping and tearing internally. It took all her training to remain serene on the outside when she could see and hear what the process was costing Bruce. The second scan sequence started, and Bruce closed his eyes, breathing shallowly and holding as steady as he could.

"It's okay, Bruce, you don't have to pause. Relax as much as you can."

As the second round ended, he opened his eyes again and locked gazes with Natasha. "I love you, Natasha," he said as his voice deepened and his eyes shone bright green. At that point all the physical changes he'd been holding off came in a rush as he arched his back and his muscles clinched and rippled as they swelled. She could hear his bones snap and creak and feel him heat up a few degrees as his coloring shifted to the Big Guy's normal verdant tones. When he opened his eyes again, they'd returned to brown, but Natasha knew it was Hulk who was studying her face. She smiled and touched his arm, "Hi, Big Guy. I've missed you." He gave her a lopsided grin and then he seemed to notice the equipment surrounding him. "It's okay, you heard about the scans, right?" Hulk looked at her again and nodded. "There's just one more. Let's show them you know how to handle this."

He nodded and laid his head back on the pad. "Stay still," he said in a resigned voice. The machine finally started its third round of scans. Hulk frowned and clenched and unclenched his hands and wiggled his toes, but otherwise Natasha bet he did better than most subjects. As the scanner finished with a final click and hum, he turned his head back to Natasha with a questioning look on his face. She grinned at him, "I'm so proud of you, Big Guy! Let me get the armature here pushed out of the way and you can get up. Friday, I hope you got everything we needed."

"Affirmative, Ms. Romanoff. There are three complete data sets," the Interface said in a lilting accent.

"Friday?" Hulk asked, looking around for a physical person.

"Yes . . . Sir?" Friday responded. "What may I call you?"

"'Hulk' okay."

"Pleased to meet you, Hulk."

"Hi, Friday. Pleased to meet you," he said mimicking her words.

Natasha couldn't help but smile. "Friday doesn't have a body. She's a Natural-Language User Interface system."

"Like Jarvis," Hulk said.

"Right, just like Jarvis," she confirmed. That, she noted, was a sharp observation on his part, considering he'd hardly had any contact with Jarvis except through Bruce who'd been rather attached to Tony's long-time digital companion. "Okay, let's ease you out of that thing," Natasha said. "Watch your head and your knees, Big Guy." He gingerly slid off the machine's padded bed and waited until he was in the middle of the room to stand up completely. "Do you want to stay here or go to our apartment?" she asked, improvising since they hadn't thought this completely through.

"Uh, apartment?" he said.

"Okay, that's my first choice, too," she responded, doing the mental calculations for his size, which she estimated at just under eight feet at the moment—thank goodness he was calm because he could get bigger. "The shortest way is through Bruce's lab and the hall is going to be a little close." She gathered up Bruce's shirt and shoes. "Come with me, Big Guy" she said, touching his left forearm. "Friday, please tell Tony we completed the scans and inform him where we're going."

"Affirmative," Friday chirped.

"Tony?" Hulk asked and he took a look around, trying to figure out if his friend was near.

"Tony is really busy," Natasha explained to Hulk, "so he may not be able to come see you." Hulk nodded. "Okay, we need to be really careful and not break anything," she said as she led him around a piece of equipment and up the steps where she used the palm-scan to get quicker access through the lab. Hulk calmly followed her and negotiated the five steps by simply taking them all in a single easy stride. He looked around curiously at all the glass, lights, and interesting objects, but still minded his "Ps and Qs". He ducked through the doorway into Bruce's space and kept his elbows in as he avoided the benches and tables and followed her out the other door and into the hall. She gave him a reassuring smile, which he returned as he kept his head down a bit, so he didn't scrape the lower corridor ceiling. "Here we are," she announced as they arrived at the apartment door and she punched in the entry code.

The ceiling was higher in the apartment, so he stood up to his full height and looked around. "Home?" he asked and looked at Natasha for confirmation.

"Right, this is Bruce's and my apartment and this is our home. You're welcome here any time you want." He continued to look around, but he didn't move either out of shyness or a desire not to break anything. "Would you like something to eat or something to drink?" she asked him.

He looked at her and shook his head. "No, thanks. Makes Bruce sick," he explained.

That was good to know, she thought. "Okay, do you want me to show you around?"

"Yes, please," he said with a small smile. He was clearly curious but a bit out of his element. However, Maggie's work with him was clearly having an influence if his efforts at basic etiquette were any indication.

Natasha walked into the living room area and set Bruce's clothes and shoes down on the coffee table. Hulk followed her a few steps in from the entryway. "This is the living room. We watch television and movies here sometimes in the evening, or we just sit and read at other times." He continued to gaze around and walked over to inspect the book selves along one wall, running his finger along the spines and cocking his head as if attempting to read some of the titles. He also looked at some of the objects she'd collected over the years and placed on a couple shelves. "Those are carvings from South America," she pointed out. "Bruce tells me you've been there. And that's Anansi, the spider from African folktales. I collect some spider things because of being the Black Widow, and sometimes people give me tchotchkes and knickknacks to do with spiders and trickster characters, too. Here, you can touch this. It won't break," she said as she handed him a carving of Kokopelli in pale green spider web turquoise. Hulk held out his left hand and cradled the object in his palm as he gently prodded it with his right index finger, turning it over and holding it up to his eye level. After a thorough inspection, he smiled and carefully offered it back to her, and she replaced it on the shelf. "This, obviously, is the piano," she said walking over to the far corner of the room near the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. She slid back the cover for the keys on the dark baby grand and fingered through a simple arpeggio exercise she'd learned many years ago. Hulk smiled appreciatively, but didn't come closer. He nervously wrung his hands in a very familiar manner. "You should hear Bruce play," she mused as she replaced the cover before she realized what she was saying to whom. "Well, maybe you already have?"

Hulk grinned, "Yes. Bruce likes music. _I_ like music."

That took her aback for a moment. He had used a personal pronoun that wasn't just a parroting back of phrases and that was unusual. She'd have to mention this to Maggie. Natasha grinned, "I like music, too. You know who else plays? Tony is really good at both playing piano and singing, and so is Clint if you can get him in the right mood." At that Hulk laughed a deep rumbling chuckle. Once they'd both stopped giggling, she continued the tour down the main hallway off the living room. "This is the guest bedroom that Bruce uses as a study when he needs to do some writing or focused thinking," she said as she opened the first door on the right and went in. It was pretty spacious for a guest bedroom, so Natasha stepped over to the far wall with its floor-to-ceiling shelving. That's when she noticed some books had recently been moved around. "Oh, look at this, Big Guy. Bruce left something for you."

Hulk stepped up behind her and looked over her shoulder, "See, it says 'Hulk's' on the label, so this shelf must be for you."

The Big Guy made a pleased, "Ohhh," sound that Natasha really hadn't heard him use before. He touched the mostly empty shelf, "Mine?" he asked, looking at her with a cautious smile playing across his lips.

"It has your name on it, Pal," she replied, showing him the card again. "H-U-L-K with an apostrophe S. Look, he's left you some books, too." She picked up the first oversized book and slowly turned through the pictures of stars and nebulas and other celestial bodies, so the Big Guy could see them over her shoulder.

"Stars?" he asked.

"Right. It's pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Do you want to look through it?"

"Yes, please," he said eagerly, and Natasha handed him the book. He took it gingerly and retreated to an empty corner of the room and sat down on the floor with his back to the two walls. He crossed his legs and laid the book in his lap. Hulk very carefully pushed through the pages with his index finger. He got to a particularly stunning image of the Orion Nebula and studied it for several minutes before he looked up. "Read please, Tasha?" he asked her.

"Okay," she said, and he made room for her beside him. Natasha sat down and shifted the book so she could read the small descriptive paragraph in the lower corner: "Thousands of stars are forming in the cloud of gas and dust known as the Orion nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light" ( /gallery/album/nebula/pr2006001a/).

"Invisible stars," Hulk said thoughtfully.

Natasha shifted to get a better look at his face, "Yes, you're right, to us they're invisible. Would you like me to read more?"

"No, thanks," he said, swallowing hard. Hulk gently closed the book and laid it on the floor to the side of them.

"All right. Bruce told me you might want to talk," Natasha prompted.

"Yes, talk," he answered and shifted so they could make better eye contact. He chewed his lower lip for a moment before taking his left index finger and pointing to his chest and then hers as he said, "Hulk and Tasha. Friends," and looked at her expectantly.

"Hulk and Tasha are _good_ friends," she amended and nodded her head.

He gave her a small satisfied smile, "Good friends." He then said, "Tasha and Clint. Good friends?"

"Yes, Clint and I are good friends." She could tell this conversation rolled into a game might get interesting fast.

"Tasha and Bruce?"

"Bruce and I are _very good_ friends," she stressed and then added, "We are also lovers."

He smiled, "Bruce and Hulk are very good friends."

"Yes, I would agree. You and Bruce are becoming very good friends."

"Bruce and Tony are very good friends," he said.

"Bruce and Tony are very good friends. Hulk and Tony are?"

"Hulk and Tony are good friends," he said with a rather sly look on his face. "Tony and Pepper are very good friends and… lovers."

"You've got it," she said with a smile. She wasn't sure how much he understood of what being lovers entailed, but he'd gotten the label right so far. "Tony and Pepper are lovers and very good friends," she affirmed.

He paused and studied her for a moment as he chewed his lip again, and then he asked, "Tasha and Logan are?"

"Tasha and Logan are good friends. We've known each other for many years, and we've had to work together and watch each other's backs, so we are good friends," she said, walking him through her logic. She was pretty sure this was the whole point of the new game and conversation. "So, Hulk and Logan are?"

"Hulk and Logan are Hulk and Logan," he said with a less than enthusiastic look.

"Are you allies?" she asked. "Allies are people who work together, but are not really friends."

"Allies," he said, trying it out on his tongue. "Hulk and Logan are allies," he said and then huffed rather moodily. "Logan hurt Bruce to bring out Hulk. Not forget."

"Did you fight with Logan?"

"Yes. Hulk is stronger."

"You fought with Thor, but Hulk and Thor are friends."

"Hulk and Thor are good friends," he corrected. "Hulk is stronger."

"Right, Hulk is strongest," she said with a warm smile. Since he was willing to broach the subject, she asked, "How about Hulk and Wanda?"

He gave her a serious look, "Hulk and Wanda are allies, not friends," he said as he shook his head. He then touched his temple with his left index finger, "Wanda hurt Bruce and Hulk. Wanda hurt Tasha. Wanda hurt Tony." He placed his left hand over his chest, "Hulk hurt Bruce. Hulk hurt Tasha. Hulk hurt Tony. Hulk hurt people. Hulk sorry. Wanda not sorry." He shook his head and pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest.

Well, he certainly was honest. Natasha had seen Bruce sit in almost the same way when he felt withdrawn. She reached up and rested her left hand on his right arm. "I know you well enough now to understand you were sorry, Big Guy. When we first met, we were both afraid. It wasn't until Bruce and I became friends that you and I talked and said we were sorry. Bruce and I have talked to Wanda. We know she's sorry. It's hard for her to tell you that in person because she's afraid. She knows what she did was wrong."

Hulk gave her a skeptical look, but he didn't argue further.

"It's not going to be long before the Reconciliation meeting in Johannesburg," Natasha told him. "Then everybody will say they are sorry, and we'll hope some people will be able to forgive us. We're hoping Wanda will come." Natasha ran her hand down to his forearm and leaned over to rest her head against his upper arm. "We'll talk about it again. Cecily will talk to you and Bruce about it, too."

He puffed out his breath, sounding resigned to the issue, even if it wasn't resolved yet. At least they'd made a little bit of progress. After a while, he looked down at her with a small grin, "Hulk and Cecily are good friends." It was a good way to change the subject.

She shook her head, "You've really made a game of this, haven't you Big Guy?"

He just smirked at her rather coyly as if to say it was her turn now.

"Okay," she said, "Hulk and Steve are good friends?"

"Hulk and Steve are good friends," he confirmed. "Clint and Laura are very good friends and…?" he said with a cocked eyebrow.

"Very good friends and lovers and … ?" she wanted to see what he'd say.

He frowned in thought for a few moments then raised an eyebrow, "Clint and Laura are _parents_."

Natasha grinned and hugged his arm, "I like this game. You are excellent at it, Big Guy!"

He smiled and looked rather pleased with himself. "Tasha and Laura are very good friends, too?"

"Right," she replied and patted his arm. It was time to wrap things up if Hulk was ready, and she suspected he was almost played out by the way he was starting to sigh a bit as he breathed. "How are you feeling, Big Guy?"

He puffed out his lips as he exhaled, "Tired."

"Okay, let's get your book put back up." She rose to her feet, and he carefully got back up and returned the book to its place on the shelf. "You know what you need?" she asked as she surveyed the rather Spartan shelf, "More books. Would you be okay if I added some?"

He smiled and nodded his head, "I'd like more books."

Wow, two personal pronouns in one day! "Do you have any kind of subjects or types of books in mind that you would like or do I get to surprise you?"

"Big to hold. Pictures," he said. "Short words."

"I'll bet I can find that kind for you. Maggie may have some suggestions, too." She wrote down what he'd told her on the top Post-it Note. "There we go. Now there is a note to remind Bruce and me what you'd like. Do you want to pick out a tchotchke to bring in here? That way the books won't look so lonely."

He laughed at that, but he did bring the piece of turquois he'd handled earlier back in and placed it on the shelf. They both stood there and admired the Zen-like arrangement for a few moments. Hulk quietly rumbled a deep satisfied sound that reminded her of a very large and contented cat or maybe a dragon was more accurate.

"Follow me," she told him, and led Hulk further down the hall to the master bedroom suite. "You may not remember it, but this is Bruce's and my bedroom. The one night I had the really bad nightmare, you helped me through it."

"Yes, hard night," he said, looking around as if he were drinking in and confirming the details from his memory.

"Here, sit down on the bed. It's built to take your weight," she said, patting a spot toward the middle. He sat down gingerly, and held his hand out for her to start the lullaby. He didn't really need her to do this anymore, but they both felt comforted by the ritual. She held his hand and turned it over, tracing her fingertips down the pulse points on his forearm. She felt Hulk shiver as the process took hold of him. They held each other's gaze, and she reached out to stroke the side of his face. His eyes were so brown and so like Bruce's that she didn't resist when he gently placed his hands on her waist and lifted her into his lap. He cradled Natasha and held her to his chest as he lay back and continued to transition into her lover's form. She could hear his body shift as his bones' structures constricted and the blood seemed to gather from his extremities and rush to his core. She could feel his muscles shift beneath her, and the heat of the transition grew. Natasha adjusted her position so she was straddling his hips with her weight on her knees as he shrank. His breathing was a bit labored because of the pain, which soon had him arching his back and shutting his eyes. Thankfully, that phase was brief, and soon his writhing was over and his breathing slowed down. The green tones in his skin quickly dissipated as the rosier characteristics ascended and reclaimed his complexion. She stroked the side of his face, and he opened his deep brown eyes.

"We did it," she said with a big smile. "Three full scans worth of data."

"Thank goodness," he said tiredly, "because I'm going to have to sleep now. I'm sorry."

"Hush, go to sleep. You've earned it, Bruce." His eyes closed immediately and soon his breathing deepened. She touched his forehead. He still felt warm, but she covered him with a light blanket anyway.

When they'd first met, he'd had a little gray at the temples with a few silver strands highlighting his dark curls. While he'd stayed at the tower, after the Battle of New York, much of it had darkened back up. That wasn't so unusual: she'd seen the same thing happen with professional athletes and dancers during their off seasons. It had surprised her how the ratio of gray to dark had almost reversed in the few months he'd been gone after Sokovia. He might have stayed in so-called safe houses, but he had certainly been under substantial stress. They'd only moved into the Tower just under a month ago, but she thought he'd finally started to relax a bit. She gently ran her hand through the curls behind his ear and down to the base of his neck. He made a small contented sound and tilted his neck into her touch. The red and purple mark she'd left on him hours before was completely gone curtsey of either his healing abilities or Hulk's via the transition. She knew if she checked his arm, there wouldn't be any marks left there either.

The temptation to curl up and spoon with Bruce almost won out, but she couldn't let Tony shoulder all the hosting and negotiating duties. She propped up Bruce's cell phone on the nightstand, so she had a good clear view of him. Out in the hall she instructed Friday to notify her if Bruce so much as stirred before she headed to the lab.

End Notes:

Many thanks to Autumn_Froste for the beta reading and conversation!

Several autistic patterns/behaviors/quirks are operating throughout the chapter. The left hand not knowing what the right is doing or being unable to explain or articulate previous behaviors is something I see at my house every day. It's a kind of coping mechanism, which I imagine Bruce has to use because knowing all the truth all at once would be overwhelming.

Hope you've enjoyed the Big Guy and Nat together. What do you do with a large guest when you have to think on the fly? I'm really hoping to show a progression with Hulk's development in verbal and social skills. Now that he and Bruce are working together or at least not hindering each other, it makes sense that he's more aware of what's going on with Bruce. Also, sharing head space and getting more time in control have given the Big Guy a growing awareness of how much is out there and the complexities of navigating relationships. He would have been working with Maggie about two and half months, so manners and wordplay would be important topics. He's clearly not pleased with some of what's happened, but he is willing to trust Natasha and work with the process.

End Notes:

Next Chapter we will finally get Team Cho landed. Nat has an insight, but it's hard to get Bruce to buy into it . . . yet.

I live for the feedback, comments, and conversation, so please let me know what you think!


	29. Chapter 29

29: The Games We Don't Need to Play

 _Still in the middle August flashback..._

Tony only took a short while to clean up, so he had enough time to return to the lab before Friday notified him about Team Cho et al.'s pending arrival. He was both surprised and impressed that Bruce and Natasha had gotten him three complete scans worth of data for everyone to work on. It was also a huge bonus that the lab and the equipment were still intact as well. He hoped they could say the same about their apartment. He hadn't heard any alarms or loud noises from structural damage, so that was probably a positive sign.

Friday chimed in, "Ms. Romanoff would like me to inform you Dr. Banner is back and asleep. Also, if you bother him within the next eight hours you will answer to her."

Tony snorted, "I wouldn't dream of it. Bruce has earned some down time."

"Also, she'll join you shortly here in the lab," Friday concluded.

"Good, I'm going to need her help as soon as this drag-ass jet gets here from Seoul."

"Their ETA is now fourteen minutes, Boss."

"It's about freaking time." Pepper had had to make a call to a Senator to get the flight path and landing cleared, but sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do. "Are the guest rooms set up, food and coffee on?"

"Of course, Boss, down to Dr. Cho's favorite brand of pickled cabbage," Friday replied. "Here's Ms. Romanoff now."

Natasha entered from the steps on the opposite end of the lab. She'd cut through the communal areas and grabbed a couple of mugs of coffee. "I see we're still waiting on Cho and her team," she said, handing Tony a steaming mug.

"I think Pepper had to threaten a few lawyers with collateral damage, but I believe we'll have them on the landing pad in about ten minutes. I've gone through and filtered out the data we're protecting. Our guests are getting all the new stuff plus Bruce's samples from earlier today and the S.H.I.E.L.D. data that wasn't redacted or made to 'disappear'." He pulled a very small micro drive from the port at his bench station and handed it to her. "I'm giving you the backup. Pep has the other. We can put it back once things have settled down."

Natasha nodded and snapped it into a locket charm on her bracelet. It was great when jewelry could be both fun and functional.

"Well, how was the Big Guy?" Tony asked as he started pulling up scan charts and 3D data on the holographic monitors.

"Your absence did not go unnoticed, but he took a rain check willingly enough. Some days he's better wired into Bruce than others, and this was a pretty good day for that because he seemed to understand how important the scans were and stayed amazingly restrained when it came to his movements. Held still when asked except for minor fidgeting. No equipment or facilities' damage. He didn't even break any furniture or knickknacks. That's no worse than the Barton angels. Which reminds me, thank you again for the miracle that is that bedframe."

Tony was really glad he'd already swallowed his mouthful of coffee, but he still sputtered a bit and turned red trying to suppress a bigger laugh. "You're welcome," he finally said. "I'm having a chair frame made to keep down in the secondary gym for him."

"Make a couple more and Thor can use them, too," she responded with a snicker.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea. Friday, take note."

"Just placed an order for a half dozen, Boss. By the way, time to head to the landing pad if you want to watch the approach."

The two friends and co-conspirators headed down the steps and followed the curve of the outside windows through the open common spaces to see _Avengers Quinjet 2_ approach. It had taken roughly three hours to reach Seoul and pick up Cho's team and nearly twice that to get them to the tower and landed thanks to some overzealous types at the TSA. Tony was pretty sure he knew who was putting the pressure on the bureaucrats, but he'd let the lawyers handle it for now.

As they watched the plane's landing lights loom larger and the details become clearer, the display on the nearest monitor read 9:17pm local time. Natasha imagined Helen would be rumpled and stiff even if she had somehow managed to get some sleep; otherwise, she might be completely frazzled and need to got straight to bed. AQ-2 was definitely an upgrade from AQ-1, but it was still built for transport efficiency over comfort. On several occasions, Bruce had ended up stretched out on the metal floor, which said more about how exhausted he was than the floor being anymore comfortable than the seats.

A couple of Tony's interns were waiting for the hatch door to open, so they could help secure the aircraft and do the unloading. Nat and Tony walked up the entry hallway and followed the interns and the two-person deck crew out to the platform. Helen was the first person down the ramp, and Natasha could see the circles under her eyes from ten yards away. Her two assistants looked the worse for wear, too. Tony gave Helen a big hug. "Thank you for coming, Helen. I know it's been a pain in the ass."

Helen pulled back and looked him in the face, "Where's Bruce?"

"He finally crashed about a half hour ago, so he's in bed. Looking at you three, that's probably where we should send you as well."

Natasha stepped forward and gave Helen a quick side hug. "The good news is Bruce is stable, and we collected a lot more data than we had, but this can all wait until the morning."

"Okay, you're probably right," Helen conceded, rubbing her forehead and frowning with fatigue. "Let me introduce you to my assistants, Sang Jin and Duri Rho." Tony and Natasha shook hands and bowed to the young couple who looked to be in their late twenties. Sang Jin was even more petite than Helen and had bright red highlights in her cute inverted bob cut, while Duri Rho was taller than Tony and quite thin. His hair was military short and he was smiling from ear to ear, obviously a bit star-struck by Tony's presence. Nat guessed they might be a couple by how close they hovered just outside each other's personal space and the not-so-subtle looks they each were shooting each other when the other wasn't looking. Hmm, amend that, they were both interested in the other person, but might not have taken it any further . . . yet because they weren't actually touching.

"Is anyone hungry or want something to take with you to your room? We'll stop by the big kitchen on the way to your rooms," Tony said. "We'll get your equipment set up in the morning. Just hand your bags over to Zach, and he'll have them dropped off at your rooms." Natasha knew Zach as a former S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee whom Maria had recruited shortly after she began working for Tony. He gave her a brief smile as he loaded bags and equipment onto dollies and headed off to the elevators with the luggage first. Field Agents who weren't techs usually came from two molds: the big physically impressive specimens who were obviously meant to intimidate and show some muscle, while the second kind were meant to blend in and not be noticed. Zach was the second kind and probably would have made a good field agent before S.H.I.E.L.D. fell.

There was a tea and coffee service with juice and some interesting looking steamed buns and sandwiches set out in the kitchen, so they all sat around the curved end of the counter and sipped mostly tea and tried the sandwiches and pastries, some of which were savory and others were sweet.

"So how did this happen?" Helen asked Natasha after they'd both had a chance to catch their breath.

"It looked like a seizure of some sort at first because Bruce convulsed and then passed out. His temperature spiked, so that's when Tony contacted you. After we had him in the shower for a while, his temperature eventually came down and he came to. It's pretty amazing how fast he bounced back, but there have been some odd reactions. There's no really delicate way to put this, but his libido, for one, has kicked in very assertively."

Helen looked thoughtfully into her cup of tea for a few moments, "Well, that's not uncommon after near-death experiences. As much trauma as he's been through, the incident may well have triggered all sorts of reactions. It's probably just something temporary that will settle down once he feels stable again."

"Not to say that there isn't a huge psychological component to this, but there are some real physiological changes that may not be temporary. We sent you some of the basic data while you were in transit, but what might not stand out is the chemistry." Natasha caught herself and paused, "Sorry, Helen, we'll have time for it all this in the morning."

"That's okay, Natasha. I know this had to be hell on all of you."

"Yah, it was a lot of fun," Bruce said with a grin as he walked quietly up behind Helen and Natasha and rested his hands on their stools' backs. He had put on a pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt under his bathrobe and his slippers were on his feet. "Sorry," he said with a sigh.

Natasha's first thought was she would be talking to Friday about dereliction of duty, but she'd deal with the Interface later. She was quickly on her feet and checking him out. Bruce actually looked a little better off than Helen and her assistants, but that still wasn't saying much. She reached an arm around him, and he gave her a one-armed hug. "I'm fine," he said, "I told Friday to take a break from babysitting. I promise I'll go right back to bed if you come with me. I just want to say hello to Helen and meet her colleagues first."

"I am holding you to that," Natasha said. He still smelled of caramel and musk and she could feel it working on her.

Helen had stood up to greet him, so Bruce gave her a hug. "Natasha's right, Bruce. Get yourself back to bed," she said giving him a pat on the back. "My God, are you brushing your teeth with Werther's candy? That really is you I'm smelling, right?"

Bruce smiled and held his hands up in supplication, "Could be a lot worse."

Helen laughed, but still kept him at arms' length, "Your smell reminds me of my friend's grandfather. He used to carry those hard candies around in his pocket and hand them out to kids, but this is certainly stronger."

"I guess I should invest in a bag or two so I have a cover story," Bruce replied. "This seems to be a byproduct of something yet to be determined," he admitted. Bruce walked around the counter, and Sang and Duri started to stand, but he motioned for them to stay seated and shook their hands.

Sang giggled, "You do smell like toffee, Dr. Banner."

"No," said Duri, "I definitely smell butterscotch. There is a difference."

Bruce smelled himself, "I still think it's flan or some kind of dessert."

"So what does the Big Guy smell like now?" asked Tony, clearly having a good time listening to this, but playing it straight. "Peppermint Patties, Thin Mints, and Andes or is it pistachios?"

"Sage and green apples," said Natasha to shut him up. She was pretty sure there was something more serious happening right now with Bruce than he was letting slip. "Come on, candy guy, if you're not going to eat something," she said looking at him. "Let's go before all of us turn into pumpkins." They wished everyone good night, and she took Bruce by the hand and led him through the commons area to the elevator. His hand was feverishly hot, but his coloring was normal when one would expect him to be flushed. "Is your medical bag still in the apartment?" she asked.

"Yah, I think it's on the coffee table. Why, do we need to take more samples?"

"Yes, we're going to take one now and go from there." She could feel how warm Bruce was and simply being in contact with him was having an effect on her. As they waited for the elevator, he stood a little behind her and whispered in her ear, "Can you feel it? It's not as overwhelming as earlier but it woke me up."

"Hold it together, Love. Let's just get back to the apartment." She was beginning to wonder if they should take the stairs. When the elevator finally arrived, the door opened, and they hustled inside. As the door closed, she pulled him close and he enfolded her in his arms.

"What are we going to do? This pace will eventually kill us," he said as he rested his cheek on the top of her head. "I'm not sure if we should be laughing or crying."

"We're going to get through this, Doc. I'm not out of ideas yet," Natasha stated firmly as she pulled back and stared into Bruce's eyes.

The elevator pinged as they arrived at their floor, and they were quickly inside the apartment. Natasha soon had the area wiped down and the equipment laid out on the coffee table, so she proceeded to take another blood sample from Bruce. "Friday, what is Dr. Banner's temperature?" she asked.

"Back up to 102.1 degrees, Ms. Romanoff," the Interface responded, "but it appears to have peaked."

Bruce already had his phone out taking a radiation scan while using just his right hand. "Normal background," he reported as he sent the reading in and shoved the phone back in his robe's pocket.

Natasha finished up with the blood collection. "I'll go run these down to the cryo-storage, and you go get yourself some juice in the kitchen. We can handle this one step at a time, right?" she asked, looking him in the eyes.

"Yes," he said and pressed his lips together, looking determined, but still a bit frayed around the edges.

She squeezed his hand and gathered up the gloves and other "biohazard" materials along with the samples before heading out, making herself walk and wait until the door was closed before she put her head down and ran. She told herself it wasn't this urgent, but she wanted to get her heart rate up to help clear her head. She was fairly certain Bruce wasn't headed into another episode, but she needed to come up with how to handle these libido outbursts because trying to breed like rabbits just wasn't a solution if they remained this intense and this frequent. She couldn't wait to get some answers back from the blood work, but it was pretty safe to say that Bruce's already healthy sex drive had been kicked up several notches and his body was doing everything possible to seduce her through her olfactory sensors. She tried to take a mental step back. There was some logic at work here, but what was the point? Why do this? She was a perfectly willing partner, so why . . . ? Oh fuck.

Natasha punched in the code to let herself into the lab. She placed the vials in the storage unit and pulled a stack of fresh individual specimen kits from a cabinet since they'd about depleted the supplies from Bruce's bag. She disposed of the trash in the lab's biohazard incinerator and checked to see if there was anything else she thought they'd need. She would have lugged a cold-therapy application unit up from the gym, but she didn't have time tonight. Natasha grabbed the stack of kits and headed back to the apartment at a good jog since she didn't want to try juggling the containers in the hall.

"I'm back," she called when she stepped into the apartment.

"I'm in the kitchen drinking OJ as ordered," he called. "Would you like some?"

"No, I'm swimming in tea from earlier," she replied as she stacked the kits on the coffee table. Bruce came in with his glass of juice, and they both plunked down together on the couch. He still smelled delicious, but it was getting somewhat subtler. They leaned into each other so their shoulders and heads were touching. "Feel better yet?" she asked.

"Yes, better. My temp is coming down. My hands are steadier. I'm not forcing myself on you," he said with a sweet tired smile. "You're here, so of course my anxiety is leveling out." He sighed, "What's wrong with me, Nat?"

"Not much, Doc. Would you feel up to answering a few questions so I can test out a theory?"

"Okay, fire away, Detective Romanoff," he said as he shifted to snuggle further into his favorite corner of the couch and see her face more easily.

This was going to be a little tricky, but she thought she might be onto something. "Have you been thinking about having kids lately?" she enquired as she straightened up and drew her legs up under her on the couch so her knees were touching his.

He pulled his head back a bit and frowned in puzzlement, "Wha… what do you mean?"

"I mean, are you getting ideas about white frame houses with picket fences and two and half little people in the yard with a dog and a cat?"

"Why?" he asked, still completely baffled.

"I think you are."

"And, what if I am?"

"It's okay. Sometimes I do the same thing," she admitted.

"Why does it matter though?"

"If it's important to you, it matters. If having children is what you're thinking about, I think you've managed to internalized it somehow, and it's effecting your physiology," Natasha stated.

He studied her face and swallowed hard as he tried to make up his mind what to share or not. "Are you sure you want to talk about this?"

"Yes, I think we need to talk about this . . . now."

He nodded, clearly a little reluctant, "Okay, since you're asking, the answer is 'Every day.' I think about having children with you every day. I know it's stupid and compulsive, but it's a little easier if I work it through like a theoretical problem to solve. Otherwise, I'm stuck with just the disappointment or grieving over something that logically will never be."

It struck her that Bruce looked as absolutely miserable as she'd ever seen him. "Sweetheart, it's okay," she said as she leaned forward, brought his hand to her lips, and kissed his fingers. "Please don't feel bad about wanting this. It's okay to desire all the domestic scenarios that you want."

"I've had some dreams, too," he said hoarsely. "Really vivid ones where you're pregnant or I'm holding them." He squeezed her hand, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to bring this sort of stuff up and make you feel bad, like I was blaming you or something. I mean, we've really only been together a few months. Thinking through a marriage plot is very presumptive on my part. I haven't even gotten you to say yes to me since you said you wanted to wait a year."

She shook her head and pressed her face into his shoulder. "Not yet, Bruce. That's all I ask."

"I understand. I know you need the time. Just remember, I will hold you to it, Cinderella, because the midnight hour will eventually get here," he tried to joke but his voice had gotten thick with emotion. Bruce reached over and gently pulled her shoes off her feet and laid the footwear neatly on the floor. "And I know whose slippers these are, so you're not getting away."

"Hey, you're not off the hook either, Prince Charming," she said with a reassuring smile. "Tell me about what's been going on in your head. How are you working things through 'like a theoretical problem to solve'?"

He shifted and took her feet into his lap and stretched out his own legs beside her before he began to massage one of her feet and then the other as he considered how to answer. "I've thought about ways to reverse the damage the radiation caused, but they're not workable. In the end, it doesn't matter."

"But you've been thinking it through, haven't you? This is one of your areas of expertise; you have to be working this through in your head. (Oh, please keep working on that instep.)"

"You know that's what I do: I think it to death. It hasn't come to anything." His disappointment was obvious. After a moment, he looked at her, "Your condition is probably 'fixable,' but mine isn't. The radiation hasn't left anything to work with, so there is nothing left to repair."

She shook her head, "I'm not so sure. You may not have done it consciously, but I think there's a connection between what's happened to you over the past twelve hours and what you want."

"I'm not even sure what I want, Natasha, so how would I make my body do anything?"

"I think you do know, Bruce. You're just not ready to take it head on, yet."

He frowned at her, "I'm not in denial."

"No, not about most things, but you compartmentalize more than anyone I've ever known—period. Sometimes you move subjects to a 'back burner' when they're frustrating you, and it seems like a different part of you works on them—more than on just a normal subconscious level. I know that has to be how you handle so many complex issues at once. At least that's what I think I've noticed from the outside."

At first, Bruce looked at her skeptically, but then he started to think it over. "I suppose that's possible. There are parts of me I don't control and others I don't even recognize as me. I don't pretend to know everything in my head, so I shouldn't dismiss a connection you're better able to recognize from the outside."

"Are you able to talk to Cecily about this or the 'marriage plot' issues?" she asked.

"I could. It's just not been what's come up recently."

Natasha leaned over and hugged him as he finished up working on her feet. "Well, it's just an idea. I know it was hard to talk about this whole subject."

"It's okay. We needed to address it. You're right, I do tend to focus pretty intensely on what's in front of me, but I'm always working on things in the back of my head. Sometimes I lose track of a topic or a problem, and when I finally come back to it, it's almost like someone else has solved or revised it. I don't even recognize the handwriting or notations, but it has to be my work. If there were such a thing as Research Brownies to do the work, Tony would have hired them by now."

"Are you sure it isn't Tony messing with you?"

"No, he's not messing with me. In fact, it's probably the other way around because he says he's seen me switching hands on a few occasions while I write, and I almost freaked him out because I didn't realize I was doing it, and I couldn't explain how some scripted notations got there. He swears he had just seen me writing the problem and that I switched hands and wrote the notes. I believe him, but I still can't give a full accounting because it wasn't something I did consciously. I'm sure he has Friday recording me to see if I'll repeat the pattern."

"This sounds like what I was trying to describe. You sort of fragment or compartmentalize yourself to get one area of intense focus, but you're actually multitasking the whole time. Yet, you don't really communicate internally with yourself. It's like you have up firewalls for some reason, maybe to slow yourself down or keep things in order."

"Yah, if I could only get all my shit together, then I'd really be dangerous," he said with a snort.

"I guess this is an autism thing, right?" she asked.

"Yah, I'm pretty sure it's part of it, but you know I also tend to disassociate as a coping strategy, so that certainly has something to do with it," Bruce speculated. He gnawed his lower lip as he considered this new angle she'd introduced. One of the psychologists he'd seen during high school had theorized Bruce protected himself by going beyond daydreaming to a "happier spot" when he got into his studies and projects. He basically lost himself in his work. No one had ever complained that this ability was a bad thing because he was headed for a career in science almost from the womb and it kept him out of "trouble," but it did make for a lonely existence because it blocked out (or gave him an excuse to avoid) social interactions. He had always made up for that with a rich inner life full of imagination, and sometimes this is where parts of him chose to stay. He was pretty sure it was Hulk's safe, quiet spot.

As an adult in an academic setting, the pressures he dealt with included even more stress, and he'd learned how to divide his intense focus and stretch himself further. He still loved what he did, but that may have been when he started to lose track of himself. He didn't think of it as "fragmenting", but maybe it was the beginning of that. Then came the accident and he didn't just lose track, he'd lost control, and he'd lost himself. Really though, control, like scientific objectivity, was an illusion. Every time he'd thought he had control, that he'd achieved some autonomy in his life, the rug usually was yanked from under him—well, that's how it seemed anyway. It had taught him to avoid getting too attached to material things, but when it came to relationships those were something so rare that he fought for them. Not always successfully, but he'd felt they were worth pulling himself together for.

Maybe that's why part of him was now turning his fantasy wish list into a to-do list. What had the big green horse said? _One day, I think you'll be happy with what I've done._ But, what had he done? _Normally, I just tweak around the edges, but this time I was a little more ambitious._ What had he done? Firewalls were usually there to protect those inside them from the outside, not from one's self. What did he not want himself to know?

Bruce suddenly realized it was very quiet, and Natasha was looking at him quiet seriously, "Disassociation, hmmm?"

"Yah, sorry, I was just thinking through what you said and spaced out."

"That was actually very meta of you," she said with a smile. "Here, your turn. Give me your feet," she said and pulled off his slippers and started working on the pressure points in his arches and heels.

"So, how'd things go with the Big Guy?" Bruce asked. "You said we got three complete scans?"

"I don't think the scans could have gone any better. We should have a Petite, a Grande, and a full transition. He held still when he needed to be still, and he was a complete gentleman. I brought him back here, and we had a really nice conversation. You were right, he wanted to talk about a couple of things."

"You brought him up through the labs?" Bruce asked.

"Yep."

"Now, that was pretty ballsy on your part, Nat," he said with a big smirk. "Break anything?"

"I will have you know, Dr. Banner, that not a thing was broken, busted, or battered. He did zero damage getting here and none here in the apartment. He even turned down drinking or eating because he didn't want to make you ill."

"That is impressive," Bruce acknowledged, grinning and shaking his head. "Having puked up pine needles and less edible things over the years, I'll say that is a very welcome development." They both had a good chuckle at that. "So what did you two do? What did he want to talk about?"

"I showed him around here in the living room. He liked the books and the piano, and we went into the guest bedroom and found the shelf you set up."

"Oh, good. I didn't get a chance to tell you about that. Did he like it?"

"Yes, he seemed quite pleased. He'd like to have more large-format books with pictures and words he might be able to read. We'll have to talk to Maggie about it."

"Yah, I'm sure she'll have some suggestions. I know the team is concentrating on speech more than reading, but if he's interested in books, I want to encourage that."

"Good. I think the main reason he wanted to talk was to figure out where I stood with Logan. I don't think the Big Guy trusts him, but Hulk seems to understand that I do."

"I guess you'll have to enlighten me on that at some point," Bruce noted with a little sarcasm edging his tone.

"No big mystery. It started off as 'the enemy of my enemy', and when I cut ties with the Red Room, he helped keep me alive long enough to come in from the cold when Clint caught up to me. Logan was a good mentor, too. Clint respects him, and so does Nick. Give it some time and the fur ball might grow on you."

"Well, I won't make any promises, but he has two months to work his charms on me. I'm pretty sure the Big Guy will be right under the surface any time he visits, so I'll let him make the call on whether a gamma option is necessary."

"Just play nice, Bruce, and I'll be happy."

"I always play nice with your friends."

"I would say it's not you I'm worried about, but you're the mouthy one."

"What?! I'm so hurt," he said with an exaggerated gesture to cover his heart. "You must have me confused with Mr. Stark."

"Just watch your wicked tongue, Dr. Sarcasm."

"I have been on my best behavior, and I intend to stay there. What else did you two talk about?"

"Well, the Big Guy is not so happy with Wanda either. I wish I'd had Friday record what he said, but it boiled down to if he could say he was sorry after having hurt people, she should do the same."

"You did tell him that we've spoken to her and she _is_ sorry, right?"

"Certainly, but he's not convinced. I imagine he was so far in back of your head during the conversation with Wanda that he didn't pick up on any of it, so he has no context except the negative things that happened and what little time they were in the same proximity in Sokovia."

"It couldn't be helped," Bruce said, rubbing the stubble along his jaw. "We didn't know how strongly he'd react to her, so we erred on the side of caution."

"I know, but before we get to the Reconciliation Meeting in Johannesburg, we need to get this squared away," Natasha insisted. "You and the Big Guy have been mostly sidelined, but it's just a matter of time till you both are needed on a mission when she is, too."

"I know. Let's get something set up for next week then."

"All right, we need to see if Wanda would be willing to go to Johannesburg. I'll talk to Steve. We can't force her to participate, but I think it would do her a lot of good. I think she can be persuaded."

"I agree. I'll leave that up to you then since she's still pretty edgy around me," Bruce admitted. Threatening and then putting a chokehold on someone did have its downside even though she'd proven she could stand him off. It was obvious all of them felt horrible about the incident in Johannesburg, but both Bruce and Natasha hoped they would all learn from it and go forward. Bruce was certain Hulk would come around once he saw the impact the incident had had on Wanda and that she was sincerely sorry for all the damage she'd caused and the lives that had been lost. He was actually looking forward to the meeting because the legal wrangling had kept him from going back to Johannesburg to help set up the recovery programs or help with any of the cleanup. He didn't like that all he'd been able to do so far was bankroll the relief and rebuilding efforts from a distance because this made it look like he was only throwing money at people who were hurt just to make them go away.

Natasha finished typing in a note on her phone and slipped it back into her pocket. "Well, how are you feeling now, Doc?"

"I think everything has settled back down," he replied. He could still feel a low growl from his libido, but he could handle it. "Time for bed?"

"I believe you are onto something," she said and started to yawn as she stuck Bruce's slippers back on his feet. He stood up and gave her a hand, hugging her as she came to her feet, and they both headed off to bed.

Notes:

Many thanks to the lovely Autumn-Froste for talking me through this and keeping things in character.

Lots of AS and head canon in this chapter. One of the primary ways Bruce protects himself from himself is through Dissociation. It's related to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)-one of the conditions applied to the Bruce/Hulk relationship for many years in the comics-but Dissociation is much more varied in degrees and a fairly common coping mechanism. On some level, he realizes that he is better off and safer to be around if he stays fragmented and a bit unfocused because he might become dangerous if he does let his ego kick in and get destructively ambitious. In other words, he's about one moment of clarity and a fit of ego away from becoming a super villain.

I live for the comments! Questions and conversations are always welcome. BTW, any head canons or favorite tropes that you'd like to see played out? No promises, but they're fun to discuss.

Next chapter, it's the Big Guy's turn.


	30. Chapter 30

30: The Long Game

 _Notes:_

 _Still in the middle of August flashback, but from a different point of view. What goes on in the back of Bruce's head when he dreams. The music for this chapter is Franz Liszt's Consolation No.3 in D flat major. Play it now!_

When he imagined himself, it usually wasn't as someone eight plus feet tall with over-sized hands and feet. In fact, he was most comfortable as something quite the opposite of big and green. Green was okay since the color didn't bother him (and here he could be any color he chose), but at the moment he was thinking something less vivid would suit him better since he was hoping his visitor would show up soon. The list of possible guests was short because when you live in someone's head that sort of limited the options. Bruce had called him by different names over the years—Guardian, Eco, and finally Adam, which was the name Bruce remembered their mother mentioning she would have named a second son. (There was the added bonus of the Frankenstein reference, and he certainly appreciated the irony in that.) When he first manifested after the accident, the rest of the world called him Hulk, so that's what he called himself, too, when he was in the real world. Here at home in Bruce's head, he liked the name Adam, and he'd almost gotten used to it over the past three months and three days since he'd been at peace rather than in conflict with Bruce. Bruce had suggested the name when he found Adam again after their encounter with Stephen Strange. That revelation had marked the end of their conflict. Adam had been stripped down to his core and freed from the misconceptions Bruce had projected onto him and which Adam had also used to protect himself. To Bruce he had looked like a dark-haired waif of perhaps a half dozen years with intelligent green eyes. Bruce and Strange had also noted there was something a bit off and awkward about him. That really didn't bother Adam so much because he was used to being the odd one out.

Adam had been heartbroken when that meeting with its cosmic setting had ended and he returned to Bruce's subconscious because it seemed so far from being in actual contact with Bruce. Since becoming Hulk, he had been confined in a jail-like spot of the subconscious, so Adam was pleasantly surprised to find that he was no longer restricted to that one bleak area, but could again access the imagination and parts of Bruce's cognitive functions and most of his memories. How he'd missed this! Yet, he'd missed the companionship much more. Adam quickly realized he still didn't have a direct communication link to Bruce—at least while he was conscious—but he'd quickly found some workarounds and connections through emotions that might function in a pinch during an emergency (at least he hoped they would). Adam was pretty sure if he could get Bruce's attention, they could communicate using basic ideas and emotions, but at the moment it was like shouting down a tunnel full of cotton until Bruce reached out and initiated something more direct. It was also going to hurt him like an ungrounded electrical surge, but Adam wasn't going to worry about that till it happened.

As it turned out, the one time and place they could completely communicate was in Bruce's imagination when he was unconscious. Adam guessed this was the easiest way for Bruce to integrate him back into the rest of his schemas without disturbing the mental status quo too much. Dreams were not the most reliable way to communicate, but Adam would take it over the alternatives. During those first few days of peace and freedom, that meant he just had to be patient and wait while in the real world Bruce made his way through safe houses and got settled. In the meantime, that left Adam alone to wander and explore like he'd always done before the accident. His other option for interaction was to access what Bruce was currently experiencing through his sensory inputs. They used to call these "ride alongs" because Adam could see, hear, feel, and smell what Bruce was experiencing; however, Adam's senses overloaded quickly, so he didn't do this very often voluntarily, unless he was going to be needed. When Bruce said that he was always angry, what that meant for Adam was being held at the ready, getting more and more irritated and distracted by the sensory input until Bruce needed him to manifest as Hulk. Needless to say, he was sometimes walking the razor's edge of sanity and mightily irritated by the time the Hulk manifested, which was exactly what people expected of the Big Guy. After a few days re-familiarizing himself with the mental landscape (and admittedly binging on Bruce's memories and occasionally checking on where Bruce was in the world), he settled down in a small blank spot in Bruce's imagination. There he started to build what made him comfortable from their memories.

Adam started by reconstructing the kitchen from Bruce's early childhood years in Dayton, so he could sit underneath the table and think. Bruce had knocked on the doorframe as he stood in the doorway and admired the room's detail down to the cherry pattern on the drapes over the sink. "Big Guy, are you here?" he'd called softly. Adam had peeked out from under the table and then launched himself at Bruce, grabbing him around the waist and refusing to let go for several long moments. Bruce simply hugged him in return. He noted the boy was wearing a favorite camp shirt he remembered and his hair was now clipped shorter on the sides and not so wild as before, in fact, it was like Bruce had worn it at that age.

When Adam finally pulled back, he looked up into Bruce's face and smiled, "Hi, Bruce!"

Bruce smoothed the dark hair back from Adam's face and grinned down at him. "Sorry it's taken me so long to come find you. So, what have you been up to, Big Guy?"

"I was waiting for you, and I found things, and I went places I hadn't been in a long time, and I made the kitchen, and I don't know how to contact you without it hurting." The words tumbled out. His communication skills had languished when being Hulk was his only outlet, but they were coming back in a rush now that they were back in Adam's home environment and he had someone with whom to converse.

Bruce sat down with him under the table, and they talked through some memories Bruce had about sitting under the dinette set, and then they discussed "business" and the initial planning for the therapy team. That's when Bruce had suggested "Adam" would be a good name for him, which had, of course, made him very happy to be worthy of a name, especially what would have been a brother's name. Bruce had apologized for how he'd treated Adam since the accident, and they talked about not repeating mistakes. Watching and listening to Bruce seemed to unlock Adam's memories, too, and though not all of them were pleasant, he felt like he was finally home once again.

Flashing forward three months found Adam dithering as he waited and hoped for a visit from Bruce that evening in mid August. He had thought about just being his normal "small" self for this encounter, but he eventually decided it would help his credibility to look as adult and mature as possible. Bruce's size and age were the adult default, but most of the time Adam thought of himself as smaller and younger than an adult, so it was hard for him to consistently hold that form. If one were going by the time Adam had spent outside of Bruce's head or actively engaged from the inside, he was only up to about six years now, but he'd been making steady headway from the inside (pun always intended), faster than he did when he was Hulk on the outside. He was still getting used to cooperating with Bruce and working with Maggie and Cecily while Hulk. He was as happy as he'd been since Bruce was very small, before Adam realized he was a separate consciousness from the child.

Tonight, Adam was imagining himself in a place like Bruce and Tasha's apartment and replicating it here in his modest corner of Bruce's imagination. It was requiring some adjusting of details since Adam had seen it from Hulk's higher line of sight earlier that day, but he also had what he'd seen through Bruce to help fill some of it in. Soon he had it about right. Making and recreating places was a skill he'd honed over the years, and he took some pride in it. He had a good mental scan on the entryway, living room, hall, and two bedrooms, but the kitchen was somewhat vague as were rooms on the left side of the hall since those he'd only observed through Bruce and that damped down his senses considerably. Adam walked around and inspected his work. He tried treetops outside the windows just for fun instead of the New York skyline. Whimsy was good. Humor got him through a lot.

Adam turned his attention to the bookshelves. The titles on most of the books were misty because he'd seen them through Hulk's eyes, and as Hulk, He couldn't read . . . not yet. The pain and overloading were still damping his mental abilities when he manifested, so he had to build those skills from almost square one. Adam promised himself he'd pay more attention to titles next time because, in his optimism, he intended to read all of the books that interested him at some point. It would take a while to get the reading skills down for the Big Guy, but Adam was sure it would happen over time. Once Hulk had examined something, Adam could usually recreate it here. However, unless he was looking directly through Bruce and almost Liminal, getting a good scan from him was harder because there was always a lot more going on in Bruce's head. Right now, however, Adam was just happy it was safe to look at the whatnots Tasha had on the shelf since the versions here wouldn't break. He remembered Bruce collecting rock and mineral samples and the occasional bird feather or insect wing, but those were long since lost. Next time, he would ask Tasha to take the nesting doll he'd spotted on the third shelf apart for him. Aunt Susan had one, so he knew how it worked, but he didn't dare think of touching it with his Hulk hands.

Adam was quite content admiring his handiwork until he started thinking about how long it was going to take before Hulk would be back in the real apartment for another look: days, weeks, or months? He had been on his best behavior and Tasha had welcomed him back, but it was courting trouble for anyone to ask him into most spaces. It wouldn't be too long until his next session with Maggie and the others, so he might broach the subject then. They were into positive reinforcement, so maybe if Tasha was there, he could get it on the schedule or at least let them know what he wanted. That was usually more reliable than going through Bruce whose memory reminded Adam of Swiss cheese with its holes and voids when it came to remembering their conversations here. (The bookshelf acquisition happening so fast had been a big surprise. He had estimated it would take a month and more urgent prodding to get results.) It also took a good bit of focused effort to go beyond a "ride along" to "ride shotgun" with Bruce when they actually shared conscious headspace, and Adam didn't want to abuse the privilege since it seemed to stress out Bruce just as much as it did him. When they tried it before at Bear Lake in Canada, they'd ended up arguing, and he'd finally told Bruce to shut up because it hurt his so much. When Bruce got bossy in Hulk's head, it got extremely loud—so loud it felt like his brain and chest were being hit by soundwaves.

When he was Hulk, communication was always iffy, but Adam was sure he could focus well enough to get what he wanted across now that he could coordinate his thoughts and the complex musculature gymnastics needed to speak aloud. The speech therapy sessions had helped, but trying to get out the simplest of syllables, words, and phrases could tax his patience. The intellectual expectations for Hulk were admittedly low, but Adam found not being able to communicate in the outside world, especially when he could do it so well on the inside, a deep source of frustration. He kept reminding himself he and Bruce were in this for the long game; they were both making progress, even if it only amounted to using pronouns and articulating three-syllable words in five-word sentences in his case. This was why he occasionally left a fist print in a metal wall. It was also why he had taken up studying biology from the inside: there just had to be a better way.

With time on his hands, Adam had thought through his relationship with Bruce forward and back on an almost daily basis. For a relationship, which existed almost entirely in Bruce's head, it was a complex one that had evolved organically over the decades with some serious fits and starts. Adam was certain their connection was a fraternal one, but that was mostly gut instinct and reasonable guessing. He couldn't be certain, but of all the theories Bruce had read and introduced to him vicariously, Adam thought Vanishing Twin Syndrome was the closest one to describing what he was and his bond to Bruce. If the theory was accurate, at some point very early in Rebecca Banner's pregnancy, Adam's physical body had failed to thrive and develop normally, so it had been absorbed back into her womb or been incorporated into Bruce as he developed in utero as the healthier twin. Adam didn't pretend to understand how or why he had survived in the form he did, a being of pure intellect, but he was there listening and observing from the beginning of memory as Rebecca nursed and snuggled and loved Bruce. He couldn't completely feel the physical sensations, but he was plugged into Bruce's thoughts and emotions. He had felt the love the mother had for her son, and Bruce and he had returned it.

For a long time, Adam had simply taken in everything, but eventually he figured out he was separate from Bruce and learned how to send back emotions and offer comfort when Bruce was lonely. Bruce had a rich imagination, so Adam had eventually made his home there where he could communicate and offer companionship and some assistance when possible. This was always under the guise of imaginary friends or versions of stuffed animals or toys. (He had no idea what he was, so he went with what made sense to Bruce.) His favorite persona had been Guardian, a ragdoll Mother had given Bruce when he was still in the crib. However, just as Guardian had supported Bruce emotionally, Adam had also become Echo when Bruce needed support on an intellectual level. Since Bruce occasionally wandered into the cerebral weeds, as Echo, Adam had found him and done the prompting and prodding to get him back on a path. When Bruce was stuck working out a problem or theory, he frequently handed it off to Echo. Adam may not have been able to keep up with Bruce in raw intelligence, but he could follow and comprehend his reasoning and then make the connections and find the arrangement necessary to translate Bruce's work into useful theories and applications. Whereas Bruce sometimes got bogged down in the minutia and details, Adam could see the overall picture and identify what was going to be applicable for achieving a successful end result. During their six-year rift, Adam couldn't really function as Echo to help Bruce with his quest for a "cure"—not to mention it would have been suicidal on his part!—but once they were on "speaking terms" again, he eventually started finding bits and pieces of unfinished or abandon research and theories in Bruce's head and surreptitiously in his digital files. Heck, Bruce even left them out on his desk, on his open screens, and even the couple of old dry-erase boards in his office and the study. If he was fast, Adam could slip in and make notations when Bruce was lost in thought. Tony had caught him a couple of times now. As satisfying as it would have been to see the look on Tony's face when he realized "The Hulk" was keeping up with him and Bruce, Adam put a kibosh on it for the time being because no good was going to come out of that revelation.

Adam stopped at the piano and sat down on the bench. He knew Aunt Susan's pride-and-joy Baldwin from their childhood inside and out, so this one was easy to imagine, even if he didn't know the brand of the piano in Bruce and Tasha's apartment. He stood up and opened the top and propped it up at the lower position before he uncovered the keys. He pulled a well-worn copy of Hanon's _Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises_ out of the bench and sat back down. Bruce had taken lessons for a good eight years with Aunt Susan, so neither Bruce nor Adam were strangers to the keyboard. It was one of the first areas in which he had really made an effort to work with Bruce who was technically very good but only so-so when it came to interpreting the music or adding emotion to a piece. It was the first time Adam had really pushed to the point of being recognized as something different from the background noise or the Jiminy Cricket voice that kept Bruce from really "screwing the pooch" as Father often liked to put it. Adam thumbed to the page with the exercises most similar to what Tasha had played earlier and started in on them. Once he was through with those, he went on to some others, and finished up with Liszt's _Consolation in D Flat Major, No. 3_. It was easy to get lost in the soothing lines of the melody. As Adam finished the final chord, someone seated on the couch began clapping. He looked up and Bruce was waiting for him, a pleased smile on his face. Adam closed up the piano and replaced the Hanon book in the bench.

Adam walked over slowly to the opposite end of the couch from Bruce, who had on his usual weekend jeans and flannel, and Adam sat down on the end, keeping his back straight and looking uncomfortable in a dark navy suit he'd seen Tony wear. He suddenly felt like a ten year old, completely nervous and uncertain, yet sure he was in trouble. Adam tried to resettle himself on the cushions, but his feet didn't reach the floor now. "What's the matter?" Bruce asked, noting the sudden body shift, but not mentioning it. "That piece still sounds really good. It's been a long time since I dreamed about playing Liszt. I'll have to dig out the music and maybe we can try it together."

"Thank you," Adam said, staring at his small sneaker-clad feet and bare legs as he shifted into shorts and a t-shirt and fidgeted and wiggled his toes. "I'd really like that. I was hoping you'd hear me play, but I'm surprised you found me so quickly." He looked over at Bruce who was smiling at him with his kind brown eyes. "I do need to talk to you, Bruce."

"Okay, I'm here. It's all right for you to relax," Bruce encouraged him. "You look like you're going to rabbit on me."

"I won't rabbit," He said. "When we talked earlier, I tried to explain to you what I did, but I don't think you understood. You're probably still not going to remember this conversation, but I want you to hear my perspective on what's happened before Helen and her assistants start applying their analytical skills to the situation."

"I promise I'll try to remember," Bruce said. "Honestly, I don't forget what you tell me on purpose. I usually retain the ideas, even if I forget who shared them."

"I know you don't mean to forget me. It's the same for me when I'm the Big Guy. The pain and sensory overload can make it impossible to recall anything coherent." They also made it next to impossible for him to think or speak like he wanted when He was Hulk. During the accident, when Adam had first been ripped from Bruce's subconscious and made into a catalyst for the transformation, he had gone insane—there was no other way to put it. Every cell in Bruce's body had been irradiated and torn apart. There hadn't been time to think or plan. Adam had stepped in to shield Bruce and forced the cells back together. It had been an act of pure will and Bruce's and his combined stubborn refusal to die, which helped them survived the radiation. He was never quite certain what he'd done or how he'd managed it (another mutation, perhaps), but he'd used the gamma to reinforce the cellular integrity and made the cells resilient enough to absorb and release the radiation and reform again. The bones and the flesh had followed suit once he's started the "update" process. In return, the gamma seemed to take on a life of its own. It acted as if it were sentient and maliciously sought him out to punish for both resisting and controlling it. Like a green serpent, it coiled around Adam's psychic frame and found the most destructive way possible to attack and cancel out his intellect and his ability to communicate with Bruce. God knew he had daydreamed about finding a way to be corporeal, but not like this. Not as the Hulk. Worst of all, it had branded him as the enemy and the source of pain and destruction in Bruce's eyes at the time. Bruce no longer recognized him in his spiritual state and he completely rejected him in his physically manifest Hulk form. While Gen. Ross hunted Bruce, Adam had become persona non grata in the only place he'd ever called home, and he had been made the nemesis to the one living person he loved without reservation. Adam let the rage and anger take him as his world burned, and the results were the Culver University Incident and the accidents that followed. The whole world knew and named him the Hulk. Bruce forced him to the back of his subconscious and isolated him there like a rabid animal. Adam was only now able to start piecing some of those memories together.

"So, I presume you're feeling guilty about something significant?" Bruce prodded, cocking his head to the side and smiling to encourage him. Adam almost jumped, but noted dryly that he'd "pulled a Bruce" by spacing out like that.

Adam made an effort to look older than ten and shifted so he could face Bruce better. "I've probably put you through the second or third worst day of your life," He said.

"Don't flatter yourself," Bruce teased, "it didn't even crack the top five."

"I don't believe that at all," Adam said, shaking his head and thinking of how far he'd had to go to retrieve Bruce earlier that day from his subconscious.

"Well, I've already forgiven you, so put the long, grave face away. It just seems endearing and cute when you're looking like a refugee from middle school. I understand that you've been tinkering, but you've danced around giving me the details," Bruce said.

"You know I only want the best for you. I want you to be happy," Adam said, staring down at his feet again. "It's important for you to recognize that your body regenerates. It happens more quickly when we're the Hulk, but it still happens when you're not, just more slowly." Bruce nodded because he knew this to be true. "You're still healing ten years beyond the accident," Adam continued, "and I've pushed it along. Regardless of what I've done, your body has changed, upgraded sort of, and there's no going back—just forward. My 'pushing' has had consequences."

"I know," said Bruce. "I don't like to think about it, but I know I've mutated."

"Essentially, we were born a mutant and after the accident, we mutated further. We're still mutating, healing, and changing. All I did was speed things up a bit with the idea that I'd be the one dealing with the consequences; unfortunately, most of the penalties have fallen on you. I'm sorry about that."

"You're talking about the temperature and libido spikes, right?" Bruce asked.

"Right, but they'll be mostly temporary," Adam tried to reassure him.

"Wait," Bruce said, holding up a hand. "I get that you thought you could handle the stress and the temperatures, but what about the sex drive? I've never noticed you were the least bit interested. I so much as start thinking about Natasha in that way when you're around, and you shut down or disappear. How did you think you could handle what's been happening to me?"

"I miscalculated," Adam admitted. "I thought it would just be painful. You know I can handle pain whether it's physical or psychic. I thought I was taking 100% percent of it on myself. I had no idea there would be complications like you've experienced."

Bruce rolled his eyes and rubbed his left hand along his jaw, "Well, let me assure you, it's painful all right—just not quite in the way you imagined, but it requires keeping control. I don't even want to consider what would have happened if this had become an issue with you as Hulk." Bruce shook his head, "It's a good thing it didn't. I doubt you even know the mechanics. I feel like I need to have 'the talk' with you."

"I know the mechanics," Adam said, feeling a bit defensive. "Believe me, you think about sex often enough for me to have plenty of secondhand knowledge and decide I'm not interested—at least for now."

"Sorry," said Bruce, rather surprised at this. "I had no idea you could hear any of this."

"Hear, yes, but also feel, see, taste, and smell. Like I said earlier, I'm sorry, too, Bruce. If you can make it through the next day or so, you'll be past the worst of it. There was so much damage to repair and then the production processes that had to be jumpstarted." He looked at Bruce and searched his face for a moment before he finished. "If you want children, Bruce, it's going to be worth it," Adam said.

"What…?" Bruce sat there in shock. He didn't know what to say to this, so he sat still for a few moments going over the impossibility of what he'd just heard. This was insane, just plain impossible. All he finally asked was, "How?"

"It would take days to explain it completely and hours to show you, and still you would forget if I told you," Adam said, sounding resigned, "but basically, I found enough healthy cells of the different types necessary for the gamma to regenerate and repair the physical structures of your damaged reproductive organs and then restarted sperm production. I probably shouldn't have pushed the process like I did. The side effects probably wouldn't have been this sever if I'd just been more patient." He shook his head, "I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but I've probably done enough. I wish I could protect you, but you're going to have to navigate your way through the side effects."

"The gamma finally gives back what it took away?" Bruce said still looking rather dazed. "You've told me this before."

"Yes, in one form or another, while _in_ one form or another," Adam said. "I've tried to bring it to your attention. I know from past experience that when you're mentally and emotionally ready, you'll understand it."

"I've heard that before, too, and I do understand it," Bruce said and slid closer to Adam on the couch and reached over slowly and took his hand. At Bruce's touch, Adam became Bruce's twin with deep green eyes. "Adam, I wish I could properly thank you. I wish we could solve the mystery of you."

"If you appreciate what I've done, that's enough. The rest of this doesn't matter," he said. "I may be a part of you that's splintered off. I might be what's left of your twin. Maybe I'm just the embodiment of the original mutation that kept you from dying. What matters to me is we're not fighting anymore. I want you and Tasha to be happy."

"Ten years was a long time to shut you out," admitted Bruce, "but I'm sorry. I can't imagine how much I hurt you, especially those first four years when I tried to destroy you."

"I know you won't do it again, and I'm sorry, too. At least the last half of it wasn't as bad as the first. You know, next week we'll have made it 100 days."

"It's been a good three months," Bruce said. "We've been stuck here like Rapunzel in her tower, but we're doing really well, aren't we?"

"It's been unbelievably pleasant to work with you and not fight with you," Adam said. "It's been remarkable to work with Tasha, too."

"And you're getting really good at this," Bruce gestured broadly with his right hand to indicate their environment.

"Thanks," Adam said. "It's what I do when I'm not messing you up."

Bruce laughed and ruffled Adam's hair as they grinned goofily at one another. "You are such a mirror right now," Bruce said as he studied Adam's face, which looked so much like his own except with his mother's green eyes. "Are you always going to be this fluid or will you eventually settle?"

"I am fluidity. I don't have a fixed form. It's all will and wit and whimsy," Adam explained. "I can hold one form if you want me to hold one for you, but it doesn't feel natural to me. Doesn't it creep you out when I look like you?"

"No, not at all," Bruce replied without hesitating. "I like the idea of us being from the same source. Even if we're not somehow the same person, I want to stay connected. It was really lonely not having you present like you were growing up. All I could do was talk to myself and pretend it was you. God, I was so stupid not to know you."

"You were in pain, and so was I. We really couldn't recognize each other. I barely recognized Betty. It's been that long, and I'm just now getting some of those memories back. Really, we're both still healing and changing."

"We're okay," Bruce said. "It worked out. She and Lee are happy. Her last message said their second child is due in March."

"That's good to hear," Adam said sincerely. He had loved her, too, but Adam knew her faith in Hulk at that early stage would have gotten her killed if they had stayed. Yes, they had made the right decision that time.

"Well, did you like your shelf?" Bruce asked.

"Yes, I like it very much. Thank you for doing it so quickly."

"Nat wrote down your book request, so we won't forget. I'm willing to let you try a 'ride along' at the book store if you want to pick some books out."

"I'd like that," Adam replied. "Just bring your credit card."

"Ha-ha! I will. Now, if you don't mind," Bruce said, "there is something serious I need to bring up. You were talking to Natasha earlier about relationships and Wanda came up."

"Yes," Adam said, making an effort not to react too strongly. "I'm still pretty angry with her. We probably shouldn't be working around her while I'm Hulk."

"I wanted to let you know, Nat and I have talked to her about what led up to the incident in Johannesburg and she is sorry."

"That's nice," Adam said flatly, clearly not moved.

"She would probably tell you that herself, but she's too afraid to talk to you face to face about it," Bruce explained.

"That's good. She should be afraid, not because she's scared of me, but because she knows what she did to me, to us."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked. "It was a sensory overload, right? Voices and buzzing and lights: that's what I remember."

"Is that all you remember? If it is, count yourself lucky, Bruce."

"What happened, Adam?"

"You really don't remember? Well, let's say it was a regular Banner family reunion. She found the most brutal driveway moment of all and put it on continuous loop for me to watch again and again, but this time I was the one beating Mother instead of dear old Father. Going through that literally brought me down to my knees after the third loop around. It was so real I could feel the hot blood on my hands and hear her scream. Then the witch laughed and told me, 'You're used to being big and powerful. Try being small and see how you like it.' I thought I was the size of her thumb and hornets and bees were after me before she pointed me at Johannesburg. Frankly, an overload and meltdown were a relief after round one. Got to give it to her, she twisted me tight as a wind-up toy and let me go. Fuck the consequences." As he said this, he brought his left fist down in his right palm with an audible smack and sat there grinding his teeth and flexing his jaw muscles. Bruce was fairly sure he wouldn't go into a complete Hulk-out, but Adam's feelings were unmistakable, "Now you know why I'm having trouble letting bygones be bygones."

Bruce was clearly shaken at learning the details. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. "We need to talk to Cecily about this as soon as possible. I'll talk to Nat. I think she'll understand. Adam, you held this all in?"

"What could I do? Hulk… I couldn't exactly process this between Johannesburg and Sokovia. There wasn't time. I took a page out of your book and shoved it to the very back and disassociated the hell out of it." He crossed his arms over his chest, "I could have sent her flying any number of times. I could have killed her. But I didn't. What would harming her in all that chaos have accomplish?" He leaned forward and placed his head in his hands for a few minutes before going on. "We can talk to whomever you want, but I can't really work with her. I think she knows that."

"People do change. She's lost her whole family now. Nat and I both think she needs the reconciliation process just as much as you and I do."

Adam sat there quietly thinking for several minutes before he responded. "You're probably right, Bruce. Do what you were planning to do. I'll have to wait and see."

"That's all I can ask for," he acknowledged. "You're going to have to quit taking one for the team."

"Like I have a choice," Adam snorted.

"I was going to bring up Logan, but you've probably had enough talking."

"Logan is easy. He's an asshole. I don't trust him because he put his claws through your chest to get us over some elephant-level tranquilizers so I could manifest as Hulk. We got out of there and finished our disagreement. I'm the strongest. See, that was easy-peasy."

"Okay," said Bruce, "wouldn't want you to mince words."

"Oh, now that was a bad pun. Quit trying to cheer me up," Adam said as he but his lip and tried to suppress a smirk.

"Well, Nat really likes him, so I probably shouldn't make fun," Bruce remarked. "To be honest, I'm probably a bit jealous."

"Oh, why not talk about him? I know I've heard her call him 'Fur ball' and a couple of other less flattering names. Some of them were in Russian." Adam lowered his voice conspiratorially, "That's how you know she likes her work partners is when she cusses them out in at least two languages—unless it's Steve."

This time Bruce snorted, "I'm not even going to ask how you think you know this."

"Actually, she's never cussed out you or me as Hulk either, at least when I've been listening," Adam grinned.

Bruce leaned his head back on the couch and laughed. "She's said a few things under her breath, but you're right, I've never been on the receiving end of a full-fledged verbal dressing down. I fully expected one at the English safe house last month, but we were both just too relieved to get angry. I did get it later, but that was Phil Coulson's fault. He shocked the heck out of her when he welcomed us on the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet that brought us back here."

"Okay, that makes some sense," Adam said as he stroked his chin, falling into Bruce's habits. "I think she was on the phone with May and it came up. Something about getting himself well so she could knock him on his 'candy ass' the next time he left her out of the loop."

"Yah, I think she really misses working with them, but we've all been busy." They both breathed a sigh at the same time and laughed as they caught it. "We are scary, Bro," Bruce said with a grin.

"'Bro'?" said Adam. "You've never called me that before. I think I like it."

"It fits," Bruce said.

"Thank you. It feels right." They both grinned at each other, practically mirror images. The more he imitated Bruce, the more comfortable Adam felt in his skin.

"Well, Bro, I hate to say it, but I can feel myself getting ready to wake up," Bruce said with regret creeping into his tone. "We're going to talk to Cecily. Quit taking all of this on yourself and talk to me when you can. Thank you, whether I remember it all the time or not." He leaned over and pulled Adam close to hug him and kiss the top of his head. "Natasha was right—you smell like apples and sage."

"That's good?" Adam asked with a puzzled look.

"Yes, that's very good," Bruce replied as he leaned back and faded to transparent and was gone.

"Have a good morning, Bruce," Adam said and curled up on the couch to imagine the sunrise.

 _End Notes:_

 _This was a really difficult chapter to write, and I owe a Hulk-sized THANKS to Autumn_Froste for her input and insights._

 _I really hesitated to (re)name a character, but I finally decided it was not only technically difficult to write about a character without a name (try it sometime), it didn't seem like it was fair or moral to not give him one that he or Bruce might have chosen, especially when he didn't have much say about being called Hulk. Soooo, Adam it is for his inner self. I see him as a bit like Ariel from the Tempest who has to play Caliban from time to time to get things done._

 _I'm really nervous about this, so please share your thoughts and ask me questions!_

 _There are a great many head canons here, and other issues that may or may not be resolved in future movies. One of the unanswered question at the end of Age of Ultron is were there consequences for what happened in Johannesburg? I will admit that I'm still trying to work out in my own head how to deal with Wanda's culpability and the lack of remorse shown in the movie after essentially mind raping three Avengers and causing the deaths of potentially hundreds of people. Even more important to me is how could Tony, Nat, or especially Bruce work with her after what she did to them? I don't resolve it here, but I want to take it apart starting here and examine it further in future chapters._


	31. Chapter 31

31: End Game

For a moment, Bruce thought he had fallen asleep on the couch because he remembered talking to someone there, but then he started to feel his body's complaints. He was hot and getting hotter. He'd stripped off everything last night before climbing into bed with Natasha, but now he slid out from under the covers and rolled over on his back. Natasha was breathing softly beside him, and he didn't want to disturb her, so he lay there being as still and quiet as possible. He made it all of five minutes before he knew he needed to get into the shower under the cold water for more than one reason. He extracted himself as quietly as possible from the bed, grabbed his phone from the nightstand, and padded softly into the bathroom and shut the door before turning on the light and fan. "Good morning, Friday," he said at as low of a volume as possible.

"Good morning, Dr. Banner," Friday responded, matching his low tones. "May I help you with something?"

"What's my temperature?"

"You are at 101.9 degrees and rising, Sir."

"Keep monitoring me. If it goes above 103, notify Ms. Romanoff."

"That won't be necessary," said Natasha who was standing in the doorway. She gave a big yawn and stretched till she stood on her toes with her hands clasped above her head.

"Oh, Honey, I wanted to let you rest some more," Bruce said to her.

"I did rest," she said, her voice still a little thick with sleep and her hair tousled. She walked over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing her toothbrush. Bruce was almost too distracted to turn on the shower and brush his teeth, too, because he couldn't take his eyes off her. Natasha finally pulled her nightshirt off over her head and dropped it on the floor as she stepped into the shower. His libido kicked in with a lurch and a deep purring growl of appreciation. There she stood in all her pale beauty and his body responded as his eyes drank her in. "Come on, Bruce, let's get you taken care of," she coaxed with one eyebrow raised. He finished a quick scan with the phone and stepped in with her and shut the glass door. She adjusted the shower to its gentlest setting, stepped in close to him, and pressed her front into him, pushing against his hard on as she rubbed against him up and down. The feel of her and the combining of their sweet and musky smells in the confined space was intoxicating. They were both being pulled out to sea by the same riptide of desires. He reminded himself there was no need to fight this. He had scanned background low, so he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks then got more serious as their lips met. _Just let go and enjoy this_ , he told himself.

"Oh, fuck yes," he groaned as she pulled him close and ran her hands down his wet body and over his glutes. Natasha ground her hips into him, and Bruce responded by wrapping his arms around her smooth, toned body. He paused as he touched some of her scars and traced them with his fingertips. "What would I do without you?" he whispered throatily into her ear. He bent his knees and picked her up, cradling her below the hips, so she wrapped her legs around him, and he slid his hard swollen cock into her. He positioned her against the wall so that he was under the stream of cool water with most of it hitting his back.

She kissed his neck on both sides. "We're going to do a science experiment together this morning," she told him. "I'm going to mark you, and I mean really deep and dark, so we can see how long before you heal up. Then I'm going to mark you again even darker. We're going to keep doing this all day long if you want."

"Oh, yes," he said eagerly. "I like this kind of science." He massaged her thighs and backside. "Please, Natasha, I want you to mark me." This kink spoke to his deep-seated fear of abandonment. He desperately wanted to be "hers." All she had to do was ask, and he would have been down on his knees. "Claim me. I'm yours, Natasha."

"You're mine, Bruce. All mine," she assured him, and she sank her teeth into the right side of his neck so hard that he winced, but he didn't pull away. He groaned and thrust into her as she sucked hard at his neck. He could feel the sharp little pains as she ruptured the small capillaries beneath the skin and triggered the platelets in the blood to clot and form the bruises. He kept thrusting, and she whimpered before finally letting go of his neck. "Don't stop, Bruce!"

The tile was slick against her back but no longer cold as he pushed into her, holding her steady as the water streamed down their bodies. That was when she noticed the trickle of blood on his neck where her incisors had cut into his flesh. The wound was already sealing over. There wouldn't even be a scab.

She looked at Bruce and saw he had been watching her reaction and guessed at what had happened. "I don't see any blood on your lips," he said calmly. "I want you to void you mouth and spit here in my hand," he said cupping his left palm close to her chin. She complied and spat in his hand as he offered it. He looked closely and smelled for the telltale iron and potential gamma scent before letting the falling water wash it away. "Good, there's not even a trace. Hold still and let me kiss you." He licked her lips and then kissed her deeply, thoroughly probing her mouth before backing off. "Nothing, no taste of blood, Love. Relax," he said, and kissed her more enjoyably as she kissed him back this time. She wasn't panicking because she knew right now there wasn't radiation in his blood. If he had been Liminal, there might have been reason to worry, but Bruce didn't have a trace of green about him. What she found amazing was he wasn't panicking at all, just calmly making love to her without even wearing any protection. He kissed along the side of her neck and whispered in her ear, "Please mark me on the other side," as he offered her the left side of his throat.

"Less bite, more tongue?" she asked, and he laughed.

"Yes, that would be safer," he smirked.

She took his jaw in her hand and tilted his head. Starting just below his ear, she traced the carotid artery with little nips down to his collarbone. He was breathing shallowly through his mouth. "You're going to make me come," he sobbed. This was breaking one of his unwritten rules because he always made sure she came first before he would.

"I want you to come first," she said with a sly grin. "You're always so chivalrous about it, but this time you're the one in need. I want you to come and come loud for me." With that, she latched onto his lower neck and sucked hard. She wanted to make sure this mark lasted till noon.

"Oh, God, Natasha! Oh, God!" He dug his fingers into her backside and roared out as he came. He bucked hard as he emptied himself into her, keeping his footing firm as he braced against the wall with his left arm and held her to him with the other. She worked his neck, kneading his flesh with her mouth, pressing and sucking hard. When she was finally certain he was well marked, she backed off to get a look at the wine-hued rosette blossoming with color. He was panting hard and his eyes were squeezed closed. She kissed his cheek and his deep brown eyes opened again as his features relaxed and he smiled. Bruce shifted so she could unwrap herself from around him, and he sat down on the bench, letting the water carry away the extra heat and everything else. She stroked his face and he rested his head against her abdomen.

"Friday, what's Dr. Banner's temperature?" she enquired.

"Down to 101.2 degrees from a high of 102.5 degrees, Ms. Romanoff," lilted Friday with her Irish accent. "Also, Mr. Stark requests that you contact him when you're less indisposed. There's been an important message from Ms. Walters."

"I wonder what that could be?" Bruce mused as he nuzzled her stomach, scratching her lightly with his beard stubble and nibbling her delicately.

"It can't be good when your lawyer contacts you before 7:00am on a Sunday," Natasha replied, combing her fingers through his wet hair.

"All right, we better get moving," Bruce said reluctantly. "I'm giving you a rain check on the orgasm, my love, but it's going to happen."

"I know you're good for it, Doc," she said with a quiet laugh. They both cleaned up and threw on enough clothes to contact Tony.

"Hey, what's going on?" Bruce asked over the video link in the living room. Tony was already in the lab—Bruce's lab, in fact, which was a bit unusual. Bruce noted that at least Tony was wearing something different from last night, so he hoped he might have gotten some sleep.

"Jenn wouldn't give me the details over the phone," Tony explained, "but she has come into the possession of some documents she felt we needed to see. The courier just dropped them off about a half hour ago, and I'm going through them right now. You two finish getting dressed and come down. I have bagels and coffee waiting. Helen, Sang, and Duri are going to be in the main lab."

"Okay, we'll be there shortly," Bruce responded and closed the link. Natasha was slipping into a pair of flats in the bedroom as Bruce came back in to retrieve his watch. "Curiouser and curiouser," Bruce remarked. "Did you catch that?"

"Yah, it's obviously something too important or too covert to scan and forward. I'm guessing one of our 'friends' on the inside has come through with something. How are you feeling now, Bruce?"

"Uh, good. I can feel my temperature is back down. Control is holding good and steady. I'm still horny enough I could screw you about anywhere, but I'm on top of it for the moment."

She smiled and shook her head, "Come here." Natasha straightened his shirt collar, noting the bruises had progressed to dark purple with a tinge of greenish brown at the edges. She buttoned the third button, one up from where he had it. "There will be a time and place for that later, Stud. Time to go to work now."

As they walked down the hall toward Bruce's lab and rounded the corner, the elevator pinged and the door opened, but no one came out. As they approached, both of them peered in to find Sang and Duri tangled in an embrace and kissing at the back of the elevator compartment. Natasha covered her mouth to keep from laughing, and Bruce cleared his throat, "The main lab is a floor down."

The younger couple sprang apart, looking adorably flustered. "Okay, thank you," said Duri, straightening himself up to his full height. Sang was blushing a deep scarlet and apparently was too embarrassed to say anything. Natasha reached around the door and punched the right button for them and stepped back as the door started to shut. Sang gave a little wave and Duri grinned as the gap closed.

Now it was Bruce's turn to cover his mouth and try not to laugh. Natasha mock elbowed him in the ribs. "Hey!" he said.

"This is all your fault, Banner!" she accused in a dry deadpan voice.

"My fault?!" he said throwing his arms open with an overly-dramatic gesture of denial.

"Yep, your caramel and butterscotch pheromones have gotten the better of those poor kids."

"Yah, right," he scoffed. "They were just waiting for a romantic emergency trip to the tower with the commute from hell for that to develop spontaneously."

"Not that there wasn't some chemistry already there between those two, but something definitely tipped the scale. My money is on you, candy guy."

Bruce snorted his disagreement, but didn't argue any further as they entered his lab.

Tony had commandeered most of the flat surfaces and a variety of documents were spread across the three large bench tops. Bruce noted on the control panel by the door that the security cameras had been shut down and Friday's sensors had been limited to audio input and the scanning stylus in Tony's pocket. Cell coverage and Wi-Fi had also been blocked. It was right at 7:00am.

"Sorry for taking over your space without asking first, Bruce, but I think you'll understand why. Eat something now, both of you, because you may not want to once we get going," Tony said.

Natasha had already poured them coffee from the corner wet area at the back corner where the coffeemaker was isolated from the sensitive areas. She handed Bruce a cup and made up a couple of bagels with cream cheese for them from the box Tony had brought in with him. So much for sterile lab protocol today.

"Start here," Tony instructed, pointing to the first table with paperwork. "I have them laid out in roughly chronological order by subject."

"We're not scanning them in so we can easier cross-reference them?" Bruce asked.

"Read them first and you'll understand why we have to go old school," Tony said with a genuinely serious frown.

Bruce took a bite of the bagel Natasha had just handed him and started scanning through the documents on the first table. Some were emails, others were internal corporate memos, a few were research proposals or grant applications, others had to do with a variety of products and technology, there were lots of research and development notes and equipment lists. After about 10 minutes of quick browsing to get an idea of what was there, Bruce started to dig into the details. He didn't recognize many of the names, but it soon became clear—despite there being plenty of blacked-out lines and redactions—the subject of most of the correspondence was regarding something called "Resource G". It was biological: that was clear. He'd seen something about cell replication and cloning on the first tabletop. Bio-med production was on the far right corner. Bruce kept reading backward in chronology, "Mass Production Techniques. . . . Projections for Commercial Uses. . . . Super-Human Growth Hormone. . . . Organ Harvesting and Cellular Replication. . . . Acquisition Plan. . . . " At this point, Bruce was really glad he'd finished his bagel and coffee a few minutes ago. _Oh, Echo, I don't even need your input to see this._ He looked over at Natasha who was studying documents on the third of the three tabletops. She was still puzzling her way through a different part of the mystery. Bruce then looked over at Tony who was gazing through the glass wall down at Helen, Sang, and Duri as they were working through one of Bruce's scans and layering the 3D images. They looked like they were enjoying themselves. Ah, science!

Bruce walked over and stood beside Tony, "Any idea where these came from or how Jennifer got them?"

"Jenn said they arrived early yesterday. She and her assistant spent most of the day going over them and sorting by subject and source. She's pretty sure they're legit, but I want to hear what the resident expert over there says," he nodded his head in Natasha's direction. "We think most of them came from inside Advanced Idea Mechanics because some of the companies involved—Cadenza Industries, Omnitech, and Pacific Vista Laboratories—are fronts for AIM."

"Shit!" Natasha said under her breath, staring intently at a set of printouts. Bruce and Tony both turned to see what she'd found. Natasha had picked up a Stark-Pad and her fingers were flying over the surface as she accessed a data file stored in her email and retrieved some information to confirm her suspicions. "Are you okay if I mark on these?"

"Knock yourself out. These are copies of what Jenn has," Tony replied.

Natasha circled some numbers with a mechanical pencil she'd grabbed from Bruce's desktop container. She then picked up another printout and circled a couple more of what turned out to be Internet Protocol numbers. She turned back to the first two tabletops and pulled a couple more printouts and circled more numbers before she finally looked up and spoke to Tony, "Have you isolated communications within the tower's lab network?"

"Yes, since Jennifer called about noon yesterday. That was just before all hell broke loose the first time with Bruce."

"You're welcome," said Bruce dryly.

"Yah, for once unplugging things turned out to be a good idea," quipped Tony. "Well, Nat, what did you find?"

"Whomever most of the data came from was taking it off Helen's computers. Hell, there's a copy of her reports almost to date over there. Some of them aren't due to be sent in to the Agreements Advisory Board till next week," Natasha pointed to the second table. "Luckily, so far at least, none of it seems to have come from the labs here in the tower, but there were some transmissions from inside the building about our schedules. It looks like they were trying to figure out when and where Bruce was going to be and who else was also in the building. There's a grid printout with my schedule for the past two months worth of my out of town missions on the third table, too. So, what did you two find?"

Bruce and Tony looked at each other and Tony gestured with his hands for Bruce to go first. "Well, do you remember how Jenn likes to bring up the way Ross talks about Hulk like my body is a government asset or a resource he wants to use?"

"Yes, Jennifer brought that up the day I met her here at the tower. Is that where this is headed?" Natasha asked.

"Yah, in rather gross detail it's laid out down to what body parts they want to use for what experiments and who gets priority on what organs, bone marrow, and even skin. It kind of makes me glad I'm sterile," Bruce said with a bitter laugh. Natasha reached out and took Bruce's hand, rubbing her thumb across his fingers. "It looks like they have an interesting grant application process for projects developing possible products once they figure out how to replicate a cell line. Maybe we ought to apply, Tony."

Tony did smile at that, "My favorite was using your genetic material to create larger livestock."

"I missed that one," said Bruce. "Come on, make the joke. I know you're dying to say it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Tony claimed innocently.

"Fine. Natasha, let the record show Tony is passing up a _Green Eggs and Ham_ joke."

"No," said Tony. "I was passing up a Bad Piggies joke, but I think I like the Dr. Seuss one better."

"Okay, guys," Natasha said, shaking her head at all the dumb displaced humor they were tossing around to deflect from the actual horror of the plans spread out before them. "Obviously, we're going to have to go over the whole treasure trove of information here, but how do we want to break it to Helen? Since it's her lab that's the most compromised, how do we want to proceed? And what does Jennifer think?"

"Well, Jennifer would probably like to be jumping up and down with excitement in her lawyerly spiked heels because this should really sink Ross's or whoever's plans if she can use them right," speculated Tony. "At the very least, they complete her royal flush of evidence that someone is out to exploit Bruce, if not outright murder him, for commercial gain. The sympathy-getting value alone could not only tip the decision, it should affect the conditions we're still negotiating and probably sway public opinion, which is currently improving to "mixed" as opposed to "lynch mob."

"Let me try that again, does she think these are legit as opposed to a set up?" Natasha asked.

"She thinks they are legit, but I'm certain she'd like your opinion," he countered.

"I'd need to take a more thorough look at all of it and then reverse check them against the original sources where possible without tipping these people off. I understand why Jennifer doesn't want these scanned, but it's going to slow everything down—way down," she said. "I'd like to at least get them onto a non-networked computer, so we could get them manipulated enough to make connections."

"I'm not against that," Tony replied, "but it would have to be deep-sixable—is that a word?"

"I get what you mean. I'll go retrieve one from acquisitions," Natasha replied and she left to acquire a fresh machine to modify for their needs.

"Gee, you'd think she works here or something," Tony quipped when Nat was out of earshot.

"She does, Tony, we both do," Bruce noted with a snort as he continued reading through the documents.

"Hey, you both work for room and board. Who could beat that?" Tony kidded.

Bruce rolled his eyes, "I'm not sure if you mean for you or us?"

"Both, definitely both."

"Yah, you're definitely letting Nat pick where to order out for lunch then," Bruce concluded, "because she's not going to rest until she has all of this processed." He gestured to the hundreds of pages of documents around them, "I'll help if she'll let me, but we're going to need one of the staff members . . . if there's someone you trust."

"Sean or Gracie? Any preferences?" Tony asked.

"It's not exactly a treat for either one of them. Who's already here?"

"They're both here. Grace is the fresher one at the moment."

"Let Nat pick. I'm not sure who gets along with her better. Don't be surprised if she takes option three though."

"Three?"

"None of the above, or four, she has someone else in mind."

About ten minutes later, Natasha returned with a cart full of boxed equipment and a dark-haired young woman using crutches in tow. "Hey, guys, this is Lupita from tech, and I'm commandeering her for the day. Lupita, the cute one's mine and the other one signs the checks."

Lupita blushed a bit, but shook Bruce and Tony's hands as they introduced themselves. Without losing a beat, she said, "Cool! Where do I get to set this up?"

"How about the desk?" asked Bruce since it was the one clear spot at the moment and he tended to use his mobile devices, which were in the apartment anyway.

Tony elbowed Bruce and quietly remarked, "Four, huh?"

"Five was 'All of the above,' but there's not that much room in here," Bruce noted, not even looking up as he worked his way through the data sheet in front of him. Tony ducked his head to make eye contact with Bruce and did a double-take that Bruce looked up just in time to catch. "What?" he asked.

"Hold still," Tony ordered and pulled Bruce's shirt collar to the side on his left. "That was not there yesterday. Hell, it wasn't there last night when Team Cho arrived, but it looks like a week-old 'bruise' that's fading fast."

"It's a science experiment. Nat thinks it'll be gone by noon."

"Well, that's one heck of a sacrifice you've made for science there, Bud. That had to have hurt."

"Nah, I liked getting both of them," Bruce said just to shock him a bit since he hadn't found the one on the right side.

Tony sputtered, fighting back a laugh so Nat and Lupita wouldn't hear. "I was going to say, 'That sucks', but maybe not so much."

"I love you, too, Tony," Bruce deadpanned and kept on reading documents. Tony knew it was time to let it drop and moved on.

Lupita was extremely efficient, so Bruce was only about halfway through reading documents on the second table by the time the two women had everything set up and running for their offline network within a network. They had a separate 3D display set up that toggled in and out of the lab's projectors, which was a low-tech solution Bruce hadn't even considered.

Well, it was time for him to either help with the scanning or talk to Helen. The brainless repetition of scanning was beginning to look quite attractive compared to breaking the bad news. He looked around for Tony, but didn't see him, so Bruce checked the big lab below and only sighted Duri and Sang. He almost asked Friday where they were, but remembered he'd have to step outside of the labs to reach the Interface since it was blocked out. "Nat, did you see where Tony went?" Bruce asked.

"He went out through the main lab. I'd start there," Natasha suggested.

"I think he's breaking things to Helen somewhere. Do you mind if I go check?"

"No, go ahead. I think this is a two-person job at the moment."

"Okay, thanks, both of you. I really appreciate your help, Lupita."

"You're very welcome, Dr. Banner," she said with a sweet smile as she maneuvered around Nat on her crutches.

Bruce took the steps down to the lower lab. "Hey, how's it going so far?" he asked the young scientists who were debating what data to include or leave out of one of the results tables. "By the way, it would be okay just to say the radiation ranged from X to Y in a footnote or touch link if that helps."

"Thanks, that's what I was telling him," Sang said, looking triumphantly at Duri.

"We almost have the data display template completed," Duri reported. "After that we'll get the data sources to load and incorporate."

"Excellent, you're probably about half done with the first phase then," Bruce gave them a thumbs up. "Say, have you seen Tony and Helen?"

"They were going to go get a cup of miso about a half hour ago," but they've not come back yet.

"Okay," said Bruce, "I'm going to go check out the kitchen then before I start asking Friday to put out a missing-person's report.

"Before you go, Dr. Banner," Sang asked, "I know this sounds weird, but may I look at your hands? We may not be here that long or get another time to ask."

"Uh, sure, here," he said, holding out his hands palms up.

She looked at his left and then his right palms, touching and tracing the lines on both hands lightly with her cool fingers. "I know you probably don't put much stock in palm reading, but bear with me, Doctor. You have really warm hands, by the way." Bruce nodded and smiled patiently. She continued, "Did you know your life lines on both hands are double and they intersect your fate line almost immediately?"

"No," he said totally out of his range of knowledge but trying to keep an open mind, "does that mean something I should know about?"

Sang frowned a bit, "You're surrounded by positive energies and you have great stamina. You might be a twin or have found a true partner and soul mate, or you have someone watching over you, or you're living two lives. Does any of this fit, Dr. Banner?"

"Hmm, I would say Tony is my 'true partner' and Natasha is my 'soul mate.' All of us working together creates a lot of positive energy, so I guess those fit, but isn't that the nature of fortune telling—it's all very general, so it fits?"

"True enough. This is interesting; your head line doesn't meet up with your life lines in either hand, which is sort of unusual. It means your mind does not rule over your body. I'm kind of new at this, but I know all three of those things usually don't happen together. It could also be a bunch of bunk, but science doesn't explain everything and it doesn't always give us insight. I just wanted to see if there was something obvious. I've been noticing that people with well-developed life lines tend to have more robust neural development, which has nothing to do with traditional palmistry." Now, that last part did interest Bruce.

"Sang thinks there might be some spiritual connection between mind and body," Duri explained from across the room. "She wants us to take a more holistic approach to what we're doing." He sounded a little embarrassed or dismissive of his colleague, which didn't surprise Bruce.

"I'm not going to disagree with that," Bruce stated. "Sang, you might want to contact the Therapy Team and talk to Maggie Webb and get her insights."

"All right, I'll do that," Sang nodded her head as she stood back and studied Bruce. "How often do your eyes change like that?"

"Am I glowing?" he asked.

"You get some green in their depths is all," Sang said.

"Some days Hulk stays closer to the surface than others," Bruce explained. "He can be very obvious, but at other times he's pretty subtle."

"That's cool," said Duri who had come over to stare.

Once the gawking started, Bruce had pretty much visited the edge of his comfort zone. "Okay, well, thanks for the insightful reading, Sang. Now, I better go find Helen and Tony." He smiled politely, nodded to them both, and headed out the opposite end of the lab. That little encounter left him a bit puzzled and wondering if it was a stalling tactic. Bruce didn't think so because Sang had seemed pretty sincere. He made a mental note to ask Natasha about the palm reading stuff later as he reached the lower commons area. She had to know more than he did. Bruce made sure to cough and make a little noise as he came down the steps and around the corner to the kitchen so he wouldn't surprise anyone. He could already smell the miso, so he knew they were there.

"Hey, we're in here, Bruce. Come grab a cup and sit down," Tony called. He and Helen were sitting at the end of the counter with the table section, so Bruce poured himself a cup of soup (Tony must have made over a gallon; he always put in too much paste and had to water it down) and joined them. Helen looked pretty grave, so he'd probably missed the worst part of the reveal.

Bruce was initially a little relieved at the thought, but also rather pissed that Tony was treating him like a fragile victim or even a junior partner in this. "Well, what have I missed?"

Tony was leaning back comfortably in his chair, "I was explaining what Jennifer had sent and showing Helen a couple of documents with the IP addresses and part of the data that was accessed from her labs."

"Okay, that's most of the worst of it then," Bruce said. "I'm sorry whoever this is compromised your lab, Helen." She gave him a quiet nod of acknowledgment. "Well, any idea what we want to do about it?"

"Actually, what I wanted to suggest to Helen is that we use this as an opportunity to feed our data thieves some information and maybe some cute little pieces of code, too."

"Tony," said Helen, "I agree that we need to do something, and it would be sweet to exact some revenge, but I think there is more danger for Bruce's case overall in the long run if we reveal ourselves by striking back."

"Well, what do you propose doing then? Sit tight and let them keep sucking up everything you put out?"

"Seriously, why not let them have what's going into the report? All they are doing is verifying our work is honest at this point. They're just taking an early read so far."

"Helen, I cannot believe you're saying this," Tony's posture still looked relaxed and calm, but Bruce caught the telltale twitch in his friend's jaw muscles and the tensions building there.

"Look, we cannot go off halfcocked, Tony," Bruce intervened. "I want to know what Jennifer and Natasha have to say."

Helen was looking over the report from Jennifer that Bruce had yet to read. "Jennifer basically says here that she prefers we take our time and analyze the documents thoroughly without acting on them just yet unless quote, 'there is an immediate danger or risk to Bruce or anyone else.' That seems pretty clear to me she wants us to wait."

"At the very least, Tony, we need to let Natasha and Lupita get finished scanning in the documents and making a full analysis," Bruce said firmly. "We absolutely have to know these things are legit and someone isn't just baiting us into making a tactical error or showing our hand too soon."

Bruce noted Tony had leaned back forward and his feet were now flat on the floor. "Okay, you're both right. We wait for the analysis. Next up, what are we going to do with the data from the new scans? With your computer network leaking data like it's on sodium thiopental, Helen, I don't think it should leave this lab."

Helen stared unhappily at the countertop and then looked at Bruce who understood all too well what she was going through and what they were asking of her.

"Look, Helen, I know I put you in a crappy, unwinnable position when I asked you to head up this part of the Agreements. You've worked extraordinarily hard to maintain ethical standards and stay true to our professional and personal relationships. I'm in your debt for life. I know I've not been the most cooperative of subjects to study either."

She smiled grudgingly, "That is one colossal understatement, Dr. Banner."

"I know," he said gently, "but we need to consider the possibility of this data having lethal consequences if it's let out into the world. I'm not even sure we should keep it here in light of what these people are or were planning to do if they got control over me or at least parts of me."

"Helen," Tony said quietly, "You probably have a good guess what Bruce is hinting at, but you need to read these documents to get the full picture of what they're planning. These corporations make Ross's plans look downright benign."

"All right, my turn to say let's look at what we have first and then make a decision," Helen said and sighed resignedly. "Speaking of that, the data for the first of the three scans should be integrated now and the second one will be completed any minute with the third to follow in a half hour or less."

"I think the materials Nat and Lupita are scanning will take a good bit longer to enter and analyze with just the laptop. I didn't get a look at the specs," Bruce said.

"Oh ye of little faith, I'm sure Natasha picked the top of the line from the inventory. She knows what she's doing, and she seems to have unearthed a hidden gem with her assistant," Tony passed the Stark-Pad he'd commandeered from somewhere over to Bruce. "Guadalupe Tomás literally started on the ground floor and worked her way up," Tony remarked as he stretched his arms above his head.

Bruce scanned through Lupita's personnel file. She had emigrated at four with her parents from Manila and overcame medical issues—cerebral palsy, he guessed. She was a model student, worked as an intern at the tower while putting herself through community college, hired by the tech department almost two years ago, and she had excellent supervisor and peer reviews. "Looks like she's due for a promotion to me," said Bruce.

"Well, she may just earn it today," Tony said. "Human Resources has vetted her twice. She's the equivalent clearance designation as a Level 4 S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, but I'm sure Romanoff has dug deeper or she wouldn't have picked her." Tony downed the last swallow of his now-cold miso with a slight grimace. "Helen, what can you tell us about your loving couple in the big lab?"

"Couple?" Helen asked.

Bruce covered his mouth with his right hand, trying not to smile, but that only brought Helen's questioning gaze to him faster. "Hey, they were being pretty affectionate with each other in the elevator this morning. Even I can't deny there's something between them besides working together," he said.

Helen looked a bit frustrated and turned her gaze back to Tony, "Spit it out, Stark."

"Hey, Friday just mentioned that Duri's room hadn't been slept in last night. I know nothing more," Tony said in his blandest tone.

"Great," said Helen, "I know both sets of parents and they are very traditional. Oh, well, these two are young, but they are both adults and normally quite dependable and professional, especially in the lab. Duri is focused on the details to the point of it being a fault while Sang's strength is finding patterns and synthetizing the results to get the big picture. Both are brilliant. Their backgrounds are clean, and they are much more interested in the pursuit of new knowledge than taking ideological stances."

"I only spoke with them a little bit, but they were both quite personable," Bruce reported. "I'm not sure about the palm reading, but I liked what Sang was saying about using a holistic approach."

"Oh! Again with the palmistry," Helen huffed. "Sang has a Chinese grandmother who was a rather famous interpreter of signs and astrology. For some reason Sang has picked up on the 'mumbo jumbo.' Did she do a reading on you, Bruce?"

"Yah, she did. It was pretty spot on as far as those things go," Bruce admitted sheepishly. He really didn't want to say anymore for a couple of reasons: pissing off Helen or having to explain the reading's accuracy.

"Oh, you should have discouraged her!" Helen said with exasperation. "Now, I'll never get her to quit it. Her grandmother predicted I would get so frustrated I'd order her to stop it, so now I can't do anything without proving her right."

Tony laughed, "Caught between Grandma and the hard place."

"Yes," Helen said and she sat there looking prim in her tailored lab coat while she fumed.

Bruce stared at his miso and decided he better drink it and get some to-go cups poured up for the Nat and everyone else in the two labs to be hospitable and keep him busy. "Anyone want a refill?" They both shook their heads so he pulled the eco cup supplies from the cabinets and got started.

"Helen," Tony said, "it's not a rejection of science or you. I would bet she's trying to make peace with her heritage or family legacy and smooth out the contradictions. She's all of what, 24 was it?"

"Yes, you're probably at least partly correct, Tony. I'll get over it in a bit. I was hoping Duri would be a good influence on her, but I've probably just provided an ally and apparently a lover as well."

"Oh, I think we can blame some of that on Bruce," Tony said with a broad leer.

 _Great, here it comes_ , Bruce thought to himself. "Sure, Tony, I've planned this all along, just like Cupid. I borrowed a bow from Clint and everything."

"Listen, Dr. Love, when those blood chemistry reports are integrated, it's going to show something is elevated, and I bet I know what it is."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Helen.

"Bruce? You want to enlighten Helen? Or do you want me to give it a stab or poke or something?" Tony suggested with a wink.

Bruce gave him a good and pissed-off stare, but he wasn't going to leave explanations to Tony, which was exactly as Tony had planned it, crude jabs, innuendos, and all. "What we suspect the chem report and my behavior will confirm, Helen, is whatever happened during that episode yesterday, my libido and my biochemistry have kicked into a higher gear," he explained as a crimson blush started creeping up his neck.

"Okay," said Helen, back to using her professional tone, "I'm not sure you could prove you've biochemically influenced Sang and Duri relying solely on your blood tests, but this does sound like an intriguing puzzle. How are you and Natasha holding up since she's probably the one having to deal with the umm, situation?"

"Pretty well," Bruce said, "considering how intense it's been as it comes and goes for both of us." At that, Tony cracked up.

Helen shifted in her chair to glare at him without saying anything. It took a couple of moments, but Tony settled back down to smirking and biting his lower lip.

"As I was saying," Bruce continue, "it looks like there are spikes in my temperatures that coincide with the 'urges' for both of us. The peaks and valleys are settling out. Natasha seems to be handling it as well as possible."

"So your chemistry has keyed in on her, right? I mean, you smell really good, but I'm not tempted to come onto you or anything," Helen reported.

Bruce noticed Tony was biting his knuckles to keep his comments to himself. "Yah, I seem to have her number and she has mine," Bruce admitted with a small smile.

"Well, at least that part is more of a blessing than a curse," she said and gave his hand a warm platonic pat. "It sounds like you're leveling out on your own, so we're mostly trying to figure out what happened in case you have a reoccurrence."

"Right," Bruce said with a nod. "Okay, Tony, go ahead. The adults are done talking."

"No, no, it's okay now. The urge has peaked and bottomed out," he said with his usual smirky grin.

Bruce had pulled a drink carrier out of recycling and used it to organize and load the cups of soup. "I'm headed up in the elevator. I'll meet you in the big lab once I check in with Nat and drop a couple of these off." Bruce stepped into the elevator and closed his eyes once the doors had shut. He was feeling quite relieved the talk with Helen had gone well, and they were just waiting on the data and test results. The door opened and he took a deep breath and puffed it out as he stepped into the hallway and rounded the corner only to have Natasha nearly plow into him.

"There you are," she blurted as she helped steady the drink carrier. "You better hop in there. The scan results are back."


	32. Chapter 32

32: Game Over

 _ **Note:** This is last part of the mid August 's surges are almost under control. The scans are ready for viewing, but what they find may be too hot to handle. Many thanks to Autumn_froste who soldiered through the beta work and I salute her! If you're lucky enough to live near a Thai restaurant or a market with Vietnamese sandwiches, got get some and taunt me in the comments._

Bruce set the drink carrier down near the coffeemaker in his lab and tried to hand a cup of miso soup to Natasha only to have her say, "Be right back!" as she headed down to the main commons area. Lupita was an easier sell and saluted him with a raised cup, "Thanks, Dr. Banner. This hits the spot!"

"You're quite welcome," Bruce said. "Wow, looks like you're finished with the scanning?" he asked as he surveyed the neat piles of documents now arranged in stacks of color-coded folders on the desk's corner.

"All but the three or four documents Mr. Stark borrowed," she said. "Ms. Romanoff just went to retrieve those."

"Oh, that explains the foot race then," he said. Bruce took two cups down to Sang and Duri who were almost finished with the last of the integrations.

"Thirty more minutes and we'll let the fireworks rip," said Duri who was obviously quite enthused.

"Yea, can't wait," said Bruce. "I'll be back in a little bit then." He headed up the steps to his lab. There he tossed the empty carrying tray in recycling and set Natasha's cup on the counter near the coffeemaker. After helping Lupita break down some of the empty equipment boxes and topping off the recycling container, he leaned against the counter, prepared to wait Natasha out since she'd have to come back to deliver the documents. "So, did you volunteer to join this circus or did Natasha recruit you, Lupita?"

"She asked me after she talked to my supervisor this morning. I worked with her last month when she was getting your apartment set up, so we've got a tiny bit of history. I couldn't get on the ladder for some of the installations, obviously, so I talked her through putting the speakers up."

"Well, you two did an excellent job. The whole couch is an audio sweet spot. Is home theater setup your specialty or do you like doing other things better?"

"The AV stuff is more of a hobby. My favorite job to do is integrating systems. I like mastering them and beating them into submission, so they all get along."

Bruce laughed, "I'll have to come to you next time my calendars won't sync up."

"I can do that," she said with a confident smile.

Natasha returned, springing up the steps from the main lab with the borrowed documents in hand. "All right, I'll take that soup now." She handed Lupita the documents and took the cup Bruce offered her. "I'm surprised you aren't down there already, Bruce," she said between sips.

"I thought I'd wait for you," he replied. "Duri said they're not quite finished." Bruce was suddenly having a hard time not staring at her like a predator in mid stalk, so he looked at his feet instead and tried to control his breathing. He could feel his temperature start to edge up. He finally looked over at Natasha and felt relieved to see she was studying him. "I think I may need to get something from the apartment," he said. "Would you mind going with me?"

"No problem, Doc. Lupita, can you hold down the fort?" Natasha asked.

"Sure, do you want me to start the program?"

"If you're okay with doing it, go ahead. Have it start collecting and indexing proper nouns first and go from there. Next, we can go by subject; I want a searchable index ready as soon as possible. I should be back well before that's finished. If anyone comes looking for us, tell them we'll be down shortly."

"I'll do that," Lupita said as she worked at the laptop.

Natasha tossed her empty cup into the recycling bin and gripped Bruce's elbow as she escorted him briskly out the door and down the hall toward their apartment. She pulled her phone out and texted Tony to explain where they were. "Good, he and Helen are still in the commons area. This communication blackout is a pain in the butt." Her phone chimed with a reply, and she and Tony exchanged a couple more texts before Bruce had punched the code to let them into their apartment. She looked at Bruce, "Did Tony give you any shit earlier?"

"Not much more than usual, why?" Bruce asked as he stepped into the foyer and closed the door.

"He seems to think he might have pushed you too far. It almost reads like an apology," she said, showing Bruce the screen with the exchange.

"Yah, that's perilously close to one," Bruce confirmed.

Natasha stepped into his space, "Are you okay, or do I need to take care of you?"

He wrapped his warm arms around her, "I think I'm going to be okay." He nuzzled her and kissed the top of her head. "I feel like I'm teetering on a fence. I'm not sure what I need. I don't know what I want. Just hold me for a few minutes and I'll make up my mind."

"I can do that," she whispered, slipping her arms the rest of the way around his waist. "You're a little warm again. Hey, Friday?"

"Dr. Banner's temperature is 101.9 degrees."

"You're a bit elevated," she said touching the back of her hand to his forehead.

"I'm fine. It's coming down," he replied. "These waves aren't fun, but they're evening out. It's just leaving me feeling a bit conflicted."

"What's going on in there?" she asked as she smoothed the curls back out of his eyes.

"You read some of those documents?" he asked, his voice getting a bit tight.

"Not as many as you, but enough to understand just how ghoulish they are. You want to talk about this?"

"I would but I don't know what to say."

"Say how they make you feel."

"Tired. Depressed. I can't seem to work up to angry yet, but I will eventually. I just can't get myself psyched up at the moment."

"Come here," she said, and pulled his face close, touching their foreheads together and rubbing his face with hers. She told him, "You don't have to get angry until you're good and ready. Practically speaking, it's good that you're under control, even if it just feels numb right now."

"Wow, I'm sorry," he said with a laugh. "How angsty is it to complain about being under control?"

"Well," Natasha said with a smile, "I think we can put our time to better use. Now, let me see that neck. It's been four hours and I bet my marks are all gone."

Bruce unfastened a couple of buttons, pulled his shirt collar away from his neck, and tilted his chin up. "Well? Any colors left?"

"Not really. Do they even feel sore?" she asked, gently probing the areas with her cool fingertips.

"No, not tender at all. Are you going to mark me again?" He tried to sound nonchalant, but his blood pressure rose a bit in anticipation. He couldn't believe this trigger had become so instantaneous. Bruce could feel a flush creeping up his neck. He'd never make a good spy because he couldn't stand up to this kind of an interrogation if he was caught.

Seeing the growing blush, Natasha gave him a wicked little smile, "You're mine, aren't you, Bruce?"

"Body and soul, I'm yours, Natasha," he said eagerly. A shudder ran through him as she stroked his neck on the left side. He had grown so accustomed to running warm that her fingers seemed almost cold.

"You like to be marked, don't you, Bruce?" she asked coyly.

"Oh, yes," he whispered huskily, "I want it clear that I'm yours. No one else can have my body; no one else can stake a claim on me. I'm yours my beautiful, beautiful Natasha."

"I claimed you. Do you claim me?" she asked, studying his face.

"Oh, yes!" he said fervently. There was a warm, purring vibration in his chest that radiated out to his limbs. His eyes dilated and darted excitedly, searching her face. He leaned in and kissed her throat. "I'm going to mark you," he breathed in Natasha's ear.

She loved that Bruce got so excited over something so easy for her to offer him. Some would have dismissed this as juvenile behavior or an oral fixation. Yet, he took it seriously almost reverently. "Mark me anywhere your heart desires," she said. "You know I'm proud to be yours, Bruce."

It was more important to him for her to see it than to display it for everyone to see, so he picked a spot a little above her left breast and right below where her tank top's neckline would hit. No one else would see it, just the two of them. This would be their secret. The idea of it being there on her skin turned him on. He thought about Natasha examining his mark in the mirror and thinking of him and how he felt about her.

Bruce unbuttoned Natasha's blouse and unfastened her bra, exposing her breasts. He sighed in appreciation and took his time touching and cupping them, playing with the nipples with his thumbs, and kissing her throat. He finally marked her with a dark token of his devotion, sucking hard enough to make her gasp and moan as she tangled her fingers in his hair. Some people viewed this as mild sadomasochism or thought it was all about the pain, but not for him. It was about territory and pledging one's self to be responsible for the other person. For him it included a hope of redemption. It made him feel loved and trusted. His pledge was a part of her beneath her skin, even if it was only there for a few days. Though he wouldn't be able to always see the mark, he knew it was physically there, and that made the thing inside him that wasn't the Other Guy rumble with contentment. It continued to purr as Natasha marked him for the third time that day. It left him gasping and flushed, but well under control of himself.

They stood there holding each other. They hadn't moved beyond the foyer since they walked in, so Natasha's phone chimes echoed nicely off the tile as the text came in from Tony. "Are you going to be okay, Bruce?" she asked as she reluctantly pulled away.

"I'll be fine," he said as he planted a kiss on her forehead. He helped her into her shirt, gently rubbing her shoulders. If there had been more time, they'd be in the bedroom making love, but he had his focus back as did she. Thus, it was time to work and find out what the scans and the data had to reveal.

Natasha buttoned Bruce's shirt up to the third button again, brushing her fingertips over the fresh bruise. He moved ever so slightly into her touch and his whole body seemed to hum with pleasure. He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers, "Thank you, Nat. I can't tell you how happy this makes me."

"At first, I thought this was just a lost-puppy kind of thing for you, but I can see it means a lot more. You're actually very easy to please. I want to see you happy and feeling complete," she mused sincerely.

"I feel the same way about you, Love," he replied. "We'd better get back to the main lab, right?"

"Yep, Stark says that after a few false starts, Lupita helped them with a software compatibility issue and they're walking through the first scan. Let's go."

Lupita was apparently finished with the indexing, so she was done with her part of the documents project. Luckily, she hadn't left before Sang and Duri ran into the compatibility issue. Nat stayed in Bruce's lab to talk to Lupita while he continued down the steps to the main lab.

Having become rather spoiled with the best of cutting-edge technology since he'd worked with Tony, Bruce thought there wasn't much left to impress him when it came to bells and whistles, but he had to admit seeing his own biology projected life-size in multiple holographic forms across the lab was pretty impressive and a bit unnerving as well.

"Nice of you to join us, Bruce," Tony said from the far side of the room. Bruce made his way over, trying not to walk right through any more of the projected holographic images than necessary. Duri and Sang were looking at his nervous system to one side while his circulatory system was on display nearby and his bones and muscles were still combined and standing in the center of the open space with the arms extended in a disturbingly Christ-like pose. Helen and Tony had his endocrine system on display and were cross-sectioning part of his brain to get a better look at the hypothalamus, pineal, and pituitary glands. Good, that's where he would have started looking, too.

"Remember when we talked about elevated hormonal levels? That seems to be one of the issues," Tony reported as he pulled up a display with some comparisons of chemical breakdowns from his blood samples. "Your melatonin levels were up and down, which helps explain the elevations in temps a bit, and your testosterone was mostly up, but we could have guessed at that one," Tony said. "

"Any idea why yet?" Bruce asked.

"That is the million-dollar question," Tony said.

Helen had been quiet up to this point, "I'm looking for patterns here, Bruce, but aside from the ebbs and flows of hormonal waves we can track through the blood samples, I think we're going to have to look at the other phases to get more clues. Tony, does the system have the capacity to bring Phase Two up at the same time?" Inwardly, Bruce had to chuckle at the label. He and Natasha just called 'Phase Two' _Liminal_ , but it was better than calling it Mark II or something else Tony would have picked.

"Yes," Tony responded quickly, "it should be able to run all three phases without taxing the system, but I wouldn't want to see everything all animated at once if you're prone to sensory-overload-related seizures." Tony turned around and checked a display on the nearest workstation, "We're only at 5% of capacity, so we shouldn't crash anything." Tony used his hand display to bring up the Phase Two data and flicked it from the transparent device to form another holographic model in front of them. Bruce's full Liminal phase was almost a foot and half taller and three times as heavy as Bruce. Something they hadn't counted on was how much his density would affect the quality of the readings, especially for the deep tissue scans. Nevertheless, what they were able to use was astonishing to see. Tony adjusted the display to run through the timed sequence or readings as Bruce's body changed and highlighted the gamma radiation progression. Bruce's bones lengthened and thickened as they sent out a glow that was picked up by the circulatory system and distributed throughout his body as the tissues expanded. The holographic image made it clear what they had long suspected about the role the gamma was playing, but there was something else happening to add the mass. It wasn't just appearing out of nowhere. Bruce stepped over to the station and adjusted the data displayed. "Remind me please, we don't have anything here to indicate gravity or light distortions, do we?" Bruce asked Tony.

"No, not with this equipment," Tony said. "Why. . . ? Oh, really?" He looked at Bruce with an appreciative grin, "You think it's dark matter, don't you?"

"So far, the only known way to detect it is via its distortional effects on gravity and light. Unless you've figured out some newer method, I think that's a project for another day," said Bruce a bit regretfully.

"I'll clear the calendar," Tony offered.

"No, don't. This can wait," Bruce assured him. "This isn't something we need to know about for a good while. When we do it, we'll do it right."

"Look," said Helen, "there's more going on than the gamma distribution. Run through the neurological scans and focus in on the spinal column."

Tony made adjustments on his hand pad and passed them up to the holographic image. Bruce watched as the column expanded and the nerves not only multiplied proportionately, structures started to appear and expand on both sides of his back next to the vertebra and then branched out in his shoulders and hips. He and Helen both stepped in closer. "What are these structures?" she said pointing out the ones Bruce had seen and she pointed out some others running up into his neck and the base of his skull. Although it was muted because of the growing density of the tissue in his body cavity, Bruce saw the shadow of still more there, especially in his chest and more along his limbs.

Helen had stepped over to the Phase One model of Bruce's nervous system and used her finger to highlight the spots and magnified those areas (she was fast getting the hang of the system). "Look, there are some kind of tissue formations present in your normal form, Bruce."

Bruce looked at the areas she identified. There were cell clusters there along the spinal column and now that he knew what to look for, he saw other spots, too. He twitched his fingers through the hologram and pulled out one from his back to examine. He expanded the image to its maximum magnification. It wasn't as clear and detailed as a microscope, but he could tell it wasn't tumorous tissue; in fact, more than anything else they looked like a cluster of undifferentiated blastolic stem cells. Bruce looked over at Helen who was engrossed in an almost identical image from a different section of the model.

"Helen, what are you thinking?" he asked.

"I think I need to ask you to trust me," she said. "We really need to have a cell sample, Bruce, if we're going to know for certain what's going on here." She cradled the holo-image in her hand and pushed it across the gap to Bruce who caught it and passed his across to her. Bruce magnified and turned the image: There was no doubt in his mind, definitely stem cells. _"I am fluidity. I don't have a fixed form. . . . I can hold one if you want me to hold one for you, but it doesn't feel natural to me."_

Bruce returned to the Phase Two model and found the same section beside his spinal column. With a flick of his fingers he magnified it and put the cells through the time-lapse progression. They became muscle and nerve tissue as he watched. He picked another sample close to his hipbone and watched it become bone. He imagined the process reversing and the cells returning to pluripotency—the beautiful beginning state from which they could become any cell possible, especially when powered by the gamma reservoir in his bones and the reversing of polarities that called in the dark mater. . . . Bruce looked up and made eye contact with Tony who had been quietly watching him. Bruce didn't even make an attempt to hide the emotions he knew were playing across his face. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. _And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born_.

"Helen," Bruce said in a quiet voice as he faced her, "if I agree to let you take a sample, would you agree that none of this research leaves this room?"

Strangely enough, she didn't seem to be surprised by his request. She wrapped her arms around her middle and paced around the edge of the images they'd been studying. Bruce shifted his position so he could stay facing her as she approached him. She quietly motioned Tony over so he could hear what she had to say. "We need to get Duri and Sang out of here. Can Natasha take them to lunch or something," Helen asked in low tones.

"No problem," Tony said, and he gave Natasha a quick nod of his head to come down from the other lab where she'd been quietly watching the science types engrossed in the models and "toys." Bruce noticed she locked his lab down before she walked lightly down the steps. Apparently, Lupita had finally clocked out on their project.

"What's up guys?" Nat asked as she slipped an arm around Bruce's waist and gave him a side hug.

"I think Sang and Duri might be getting hungry. We've had them cooped up in the lab all morning maybe they might like to get a breath of fresh air and something to nosh," suggested Tony.

"Brilliant!" she said with enthusiasm. "We'll bring you three back something to go." She gave Bruce a quick peck on the cheek and approached Sang and Duri. Within less than two minutes, Natasha had the two younger scientists in tow and headed out to a local bistro for lunch. She gave Bruce one last look of encouragement as she entered the elevator. He did his best to reassure her with a small smile and a thumbs-up gesture.

As the elevator door closed, Bruce shifted his gaze to Helen, "Well, the offer still stands. I'm willing to let you take what biopsies and blood samples you want and work on them here, but none of this is going to leave the labs. It's too dangerous. You saw what a handful of supposedly legit organizations were willing to do with just my normal cells. Think what they would do if they knew I was a source for pluripotent cells." Helen continued to pace and shake her head.

"Helen," Tony implored, "I don't think we should even take the samples. Right now this lab is secure, but you know that's a moment-to-moment state of affairs. If this information gets out, we're going to have more than corporations circling us like sharks. Jennifer even mentioned that someone is putting pressure on politicians to demand Bruce donate himself for 'patriotic causes' to start a new biological arms race. Think what these people will do if they get their hands on him."

Helen had continued to hug herself and pace, but now she seemed to make a decision. "You have a biohazard incinerator in your lab, correct, Bruce?"

"Yes, we certainly do," he replied.

"Let me run this by you both." Helen explained, "I think you're hypothesis about those clusters being some kind of pluripotent cells is correct. I think I might know how they got there, but we're going to need to test your blood using a flow cytometry test. I brought the kits with me, so it won't take long to do. Are you willing to do that, Bruce?"

"Are you willing to deep-six the data?" Bruce asked.

"All of it?" she responded. "I can't go back empty-handed. You both know that. It would send up huge red flags from the Agreement Oversight Board down to our corporate thugs. You have to give me something."

Bruce and Tony looked at each other before Tony spoke. "I've looked at the 'Phase Three' data, and thanks to the Big Guy's thick skin and the radiation, it's limited to exterior data, so that's probably safe to hand over. I can scrub the Phase One data and images to exclude the provocative information. As far as I'm concerned, there was no Phase Two—just Phase A and B or Banner and Hulk scans, if you like that better."

"Okay, that might work," she said. "How about the blood work?"

"You can have the data," Bruce said, "but we need to make sure any tests pointing toward 'provocative' subjects are omitted."

"Gentlemen, I think we're on the same page," Helen said with relief.

"Good," said Bruce with a sigh. "What blood samples do you want to use?"

"The oldest one you have and I'd like to take a new one," Helen replied.

"Everything is up in my lab," Bruce noted. "Grab your cytometry test kits and meet me up there."

"Okey dokey, I will get busy scrubbing then," said Tony and he settled behind one of the workstations and got busy. The first thing he did was make a copy of all the data on an external drive and remove it from the port and drop it in his pocket. Next, he stripped all references to Phase Two from all the files and removed all the related data from the system. The rest wasn't going to be so easy, but he wanted to be the one to do the scrubbing, tedious or not. He sent a quick text to Nat telling her to take her time, and then he dug into the job.

Bruce was a little surprised at how pristine his lab looked, but he didn't have time to inspect anything beyond a quick look. No doubt Nat had put the laptop in a secure location because it wasn't on the desktop. He wiped down a work area and pulled the requested blood sample out of cryogenic storage and set it in an individual containment unit on the workbench. He rolled up his left sleeve and was getting ready to try and tie off the rubber tourniquet one-handed when Helen came through the door.

"Right idea, Bruce, but I want to try a different spot."

"Uh, okay, I'm hoping it's not the jugular."

"Oh, no. Take off your shoes and socks," Helen instructed, patting a spot on the bench where she wanted him to sit. Bruce complied and sat on the bench to remove his shoes and socks. Helen had put on a pair of latex gloves, and she inspected one bare foot and then the other as she settled on his right foot and used the tourniquet further up his calf to help raise the greater saphenous vein on top. "I thought it might be a good idea to get a sample from as close as possible to one of those cell clusters, so I'm giving the greater saphenous vein a try." Bruce nodded. "What is it with you and the smells, Bruce? I still get caramel, but now I smell tart apples and something else," Helen said.

"Sage?"

"Right, that's it," she said as she swabbed the vein. "Most people would have funky, stinky feet, but you smell like three nice things."

"Well, Helen, I was kind of hoping we'd figure that out. The caramel seems to be on the wane, so maybe something will show up in the blood chemistry. Owww! You better have found that vein because that was way worse than the arm."

"Hold still. I got it on the first try. Would you please hand me the sample vials one at a time."

Bruce handed her the first one, "One for me and one for you, right?"

"Correct. I'll subdivide mine for the test." Helen quickly had the samples collected and Bruce was back in his shoes. "This new type of flow test is quite a bit faster than the older flow method, but it's still going to take an hour. May I set it up in here so Sang and Duri won't happen on it by chance."

"My lab is your lab," Bruce said with a warm smile. "What can I do to help you set up?" The method as quite simple and relied mostly on gravity and filtered cell flow to concentrate the cells in the sample and then one applied the antigen-detecting and staining elements—uorescently-conjugated monoclonal and the u-c isotype control antibody—to at least two subsamples or four total in this case. The final step was to place the samples on ice for 30 minutes in a dark place. Between Helen and Bruce, they had the samples on ice and under an opaque hood in less than Twenty minutes.

"So, Helen," Bruce said as they settled back at the bench to wait, "my guess is you suspect I have two sets of DNA or some type of chimerism since that's mostly what this test is used to determine for transplant patients."

"Then your guess about my suspicion would be correct," she said. "If _someone_ would do a proper biopsy and comprehensive genetic testing we'd know more, but this will at least give us a down and dirty answer to how many sets of DNA you have present in your blood."

"Helen, you know any lab that takes even one of my bio samples is going to get hit. It's not worth the risk. I don't want to be responsible for that, especially if it's U-Gin. Ultron was enough of a horror show for you."

"Bruce, you could submit it under another name at a lab on a different continent. If you would just get it done, we'd have some idea where you're going and what to expect."

He shook his head, "You know that wouldn't work either. Look, Helen, eventually we'll find a way to do it, probably in-house or with you if we can find a way to make U-Gin secure for the three months the testing and analysis take, but not now while we're still in the public eye and your security has been hacked."

"I'd be willing to reconfigure part of U-Gin's lab space, so you could get the testing done here, and . . . ."

Bruce held his hands up, hoping Helen might decide to pause. "We'll talk to Tony. We'll see what we can do, but things are just too hot right now, Helen, especially while you're supposed to be working for the Agreements Oversight Board instead of being my colleague and friend. I refuse to put you and your team in any more danger than I already have."

"All right, Bruce, but this is a pause in the conversation, not an end to it."

"I agree, it's not at an end, and we will come back to it. We have the luxury of having enough time to do this right later, so no one gets hurt. I'm pretty curious to know about what makes me, but let's play this close to the vest and hold our aces till the next hand."

Helen started to smirk. "That's not how poker is played, Bruce."

He shook his head sheepishly and laughed, "Well, you get what I mean. I'm not even sure if that's a good strategy for spades or rummy, but please, the full genetic testing can wait a while longer."

"Fine, you have your 'pause,' Dr. Banner." She checked her watch, "It's been thirty minutes, so let's see if you're a mythical beast or we're back to square one." Helen opened the hood and pulled out the tray with the labeled vials. She held up two of the vials, "Congratulations, Bruce, you are a mythical beast."

"Two purple and two green: how appropriate," Bruce said referring to the dyes, which interacted with different antigens in the two different sets of DNA in each sample. "So, let me ask you this then, Helen, what type of chimera do you think I am?"

"Have you had an organ or tissue transplant?"

"No."

"Blood transfusion?"

"No."

"Been blood-doping for a long-distance athletic competition?"

"No."

"Then, judging by the clusters of cells we've established are present in your body, which we are fairly certain are stem cells, I'm thinking you were conceived as a twin, but your twin didn't survive the first trimester."

"Vanishing Twin Syndrome?"

"Right. You absorbed some of your twin's tissue and with it, his or her DNA. The other less likely possibility is you have absorbed your mother's or a lover's cells into your bloodstream. Unfortunately, we would need to do some real genetic testing to rule those out completely, but I'm pretty sure VTS is the case."

"Okay, is there anything I need to worry about with this?" he queried.

"Not really. You don't plan on making any blood or organ donations do you?"

Bruce rolled his eyes and laughed, "Not voluntarily, no!"

"I didn't think so," she joked. "Hey, it looks like Natasha is back with Sang and Duri," she said, checking downstairs through the glass wall.

"Go ahead and join them. I'll get this cleaned up," he said.

"Oh, this is not going to be fun to tell them, but I'm sure they will agree," Helen mused.

"The less you tell them, the better off they'll be," he said sadly. "Ignorance may not be bliss, but you know the kind of people we're dealing with, Helen."

By the time Bruce had disposed of the biohazards in the incinerator and washed and put up the rest, Natasha came up the steps and joined him.

"Well, I see we officially have just two sets of scans now and that first one has been modified a bit," Natasha said cocking a knowing eyebrow at him.

"Yes, that is what we agreed to do, so that's the official line from here on out. Helen also has all the blood sample data, and I took a rather interesting little test that determined I have two sets of DNA present in my blood. How was lunch?"

"Whoa there, Sport! What do you mean two sets of DNA?"

"Get your Google app fired up. The term is _chimera_ , and it may be that I had a twin during the first trimester of my mother's pregnancy and the twin did not survive except as a part of me, which is . . .

"Vanishing Twin Syndrome. We've talked about it before when we've discussed Hulk," she noted.

"Small world, huh?" he said. "It seems like eventually everything connects or metamorphosizes into the other thing."

"So why did we end up deep-sixing all of the Liminal data?" she asked.

"It's gone, but it's not _all gone_. I can't really say anymore at least for the time being. It was because of the extra cell clusters that we're pretty sure are pluripotent cells—probably from a vanished twin it would now seem. If some company wants me for my blood or skin cells, just think what they would do to have these. They're potentially the fountain of youth, the cure for cancer and Alzheimer's, and the answer to impotence all rolled into one."

"And here I thought my competition was Veronica," she said with her characteristic deadpan.

Bruce acknowledged her with a small smile and continued, "Tony also scrubbed any evidence of the pluripotent clusters from the Phase One model and data because it was there if you knew what to look for. Anything else you want to know?"

She held out her arms, "Why you're not holding me yet?"

"Oh, that I can fix right now," he said and pulled her into his warm embrace.

"So these cells could potentially become about anything?" she asked.

"Muscle, bone, nerve, just about any type of tissue there is in the body, so they can repair and possibly improve anything in the body. Who knows, they might even consider the gamma a bonus," he said with a touch of animosity.

"So if these cells are ten times more valuable than your regular cells, is this the end of the line or is there something beyond these?"

"That's a good question," he said and ran his tongue across his lower lip in thought then chewed his lip. "I can't father a child much less carry one," he smiled a little at that, "but fetal stem cells would maybe be even more valuable." He shook his head, going very quiet for a minute. "It's taking me down dark paths to think about this subject, Nat. Let's not go there."

"I'm sorry, Bruce. I didn't mean to do that," she apologized. "Come on, we brought you back pad Thai and Vietnamese sandwiches. Let's get some carbs and protein into you, Bruce."

"One more reason I prefer you over Veronica," he said, and pulled her into a warm kiss she wished could have lasted all afternoon."

(((O)))

"Nat, are you sure you don't want some noodles with your broth?" Pepper asked. "These are pretty plain. I bet you could keep them down."

"Give it a try, Red. You are eating for two now," coaxed Happy. He was eating some of the red curry she normally relished, but now knew was making feel her nauseous.

"I'll give it a try here in a minute," she replied as she came out of her reverie. "I just remembered that I need to check on someone." Natasha pulled out her phone and called the tower's tech desk. "Hey, Allison, is Lupita there?"

"No, she took Wednesday off and didn't come in today. She hasn't called to check in or explain why, and nobody picked up when I called her apartment at 10:00am," said Allison. "Is it anything I can help with?"

"No, Allison, thanks. Try her cell and her parents' number. It should be in her file. Please let me know if you reach her." Natasha tapped off her phone and stared at it for a moment before she looked up. "Nick, I'm afraid we may have another missing person."

 _ **END NOTE:** Well, we made it back to the "present" and what a wild and wooly flashback story arc it's been. I'm hoping it supports and clarifies what motivates Nat and Bruce and illustrates how their relationship has evolved and matured over the months._

 _I also hope the science has worked for you because it's involved a lot of research. I did my best to use what is canon in the comics and movies then built on it using some theories I've had as head canons for a good while. If you are interested in chimerism or disappearing twins, you can find out a ton just by Googling them. I think these theories also help ground/explain Adam's existence in both the real world and the psychic one as well. I'd really love to talk about these and other theories further, so please comment._


	33. Chapter 33

33: Rings and Reality Adjustments

For the first five minutes, having Adam loose in his head reminded Bruce of being knocked over and playfully mauled by a large-breed puppy: overwhelming, messy, and enjoyable if you liked the puppy. Bruce waited Adam out as they both adjusted to this unfiltered connection they now shared. On the outside, Bruce quietly gazed through the Hummer's tinted window at the red brick apartment buildings and businesses as they wound their way down the hill on Vine Street to their hotel and the jewelry store in downtown Cincinnati, but inside he was trying to keep up with Adam's excitement and not let it spill over into the real world where Bruce knew Tony was scrutinizing his every breath and twitch.

In Bruce's mind, Adam still looked about six and he now sat curled up next to Bruce on the couch in Natasha and his apartment. "I can talk to you when we want now, Bruce. I don't have to wait till you notice me or we transform. You know me! You finally know me while you're awake. I can feel what you're feeling and touching in the real world. I know the tag in your shirt itches. I can smell what the air is like that you're breathing in the car. Someone is wearing gardenia-scented perfume. The seat is leather and it smells like saddle soap. I remember the smell of saddle soap. The leather squeaks when you move and uncross your knees. Why are the windows on the sides so dark? I recognize Tony. He's watching you. He's worried, but he's excited for you, too. We're going to a jewelry store to find a ring for Tasha. May I help choose it? I'd really like to do that."

The pause was finally long enough for Bruce to get in a word. "Are you done or just catching your breath?" Bruce tried not to smile too much and embarrass Adam.

"I don't know. I don't really have to breathe here," Adam said.

"I just didn't want to interrupt you if you had more to get out," Bruce said as an amused smile slipped through. "It felt pretty cathartic just listening to you."

"I think I'm good, so do you need help with picking out the ring?" he asked with a hopeful look that he backed up with puppy-dog eyes of deepest green.

There was no way Bruce could have turned him down even if he wanted. "Yes, I'd like to have you help me, Adam. You know Natasha well enough to judge what she might like. Are you okay?" he asked because Adam seemed suddenly tired as he curled in closer under Bruce's right arm. "I know this has to be overwhelming for you."

"Yah, Bruce, I'm okay." Adam placed his hands on his temples on both sides, "It's a lot more input than I'm used to getting from you, but I'm figuring it out as we're talking."

"It's okay, let's just stay still and quiet for a bit. You already noticed Tony is concerned because he knows something happened. He just doesn't know what. I need to be able to function in the real world. We'll work this all out in detail later, but for right now, when people start talking, I'm going to have to interact with them. Do you think you'll be okay when I have to talk and listen to them?"

"I think I'm pretty under control now, but I feel really wiped out. I guess I got too excited," Adam said and yawned.

"I'm sorry I have to be so pragmatic," Bruce said, studying the child's face. "I promise we'll have time this evening when I can be by myself with you. I wish I could just talk to you right now. I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. This was a big surprise, but we're going to figure it out." He nuzzled in close and laid his head on Bruce's lap. "It wouldn't be a good idea for anyone to think you'd gone crazy."

"True." Bruce stroked the child's dark curls, and he could feel Adam's small body relax and finally go slack. If Bruce had had his way, they would have taken this much more slowly and been at home, but Adam was right, they were going to figure it out. It was just as well Adam was zonked and sleeping it off because Bruce had a lot to think about. It was like he'd been putting a large puzzle together, despite knowing there were some pieces missing, and suddenly he'd realized there were a bunch of them hidden under the box lid. He'd quickly sorted through and identified the edge pieces, so those he was putting into place first. _Adam._ Where to start? If he let himself think too long, Bruce knew both guilt and joy would overwhelm him. Just knowing Adam existed answered so many questions and closed so many gaps that Bruce didn't have time to examine them all. Many of them he didn't need to address because suddenly issues like the extent of the chimerism made sense. His vivid dreams and daydreams of imagined siblings, guardians, and friends made sense. His guilt and shame and frustration connected to surviving the accident—he understood them better now. Bruce knew he had to be careful or he'd just spend the whole day staring into the distance and murmuring, "Oh, fuck!" every five to ten seconds, so he trusted his subconscious to handle it for the moment.

The next piece to fall into place was Stephen Strange. Bruce remembered their meeting on the psychic plane at that very crucial juncture, but he wasn't sure why this would be the right time to remember so much. Was he simply ready to know and deal with this knowledge or was something about to happen? The first option Bruce felt sure he could handle, but the second one made him feel uneasy at the very least, especially as he went over the conversation from almost nine months before. Bruce took a moment to look over at Tony and give him a reassuring smile. Bruce felt confident Tony was in a stable place, mentally speaking, but Bruce's influence over his friend was limited to giving his input and helping when asked and just being as stable of an element and anchor as possible. That left Natasha. He'd screwed up, but he'd done everything possible to make that right. Then came the literal 'Oh-fuck!' moment he'd been in denial about all morning.

Bruce didn't go into a laughing fit or lockup into a catatonic stupor; instead, he started to grin and he couldn't stop. He felt Tony put a hand on his knee, so Bruce turned and looked at him with that grin still stuck on his face. "Nat's pregnant, isn't she?" Bruce said in a low voice.

Relief immediately spread across Tony's face, "Yah, I think you're right, Bruce." Then they both had really goofy smiles that just didn't want to go away. "Fist or five?" asked Tony.

"Fist," replied Bruce, offering up a firm set of knuckles to bump, and they laughed. "Thanks, for sticking with me, Tony. I know I've been a royal pain in the ass, especially today."

"And the day is young," Tony smirked, "but you're worth it, Bro. I hope you're ready to make some grand gestures because that's going to happen."

"I don't see why not?" said Bruce.

One of the nice things about downtown Cincinnati, Bruce decided, was that it was walkable and there were plenty of things to see and do that they could get to on foot. There also seemed to be plenty of buses and an electric trolley line he wanted to try out. Since the luggage had long since been dropped off at the hotel with Kayla and who knew how much security, Joseph had parked the Hummer in the city's underground parking facility across the street from the Cincinnatian Hotel, and they had walked the three and half blocks down a thriving corridor of businesses that included higher-end clothing, jewelry, furniture, and other retail businesses. The larger stores transitioned into restaurants, bars, and smaller shops with trendier themes and then older businesses that had clearly been in their location much longer and had survived gentrification with a good bit of their original character intact.

Heidel and Higgins, "Fine Jewelers Since 1904," was tucked into a medium-sized storefront between a health food store and an art gallery. Mal had called ahead to make an appointment, so the owner was there to meet them. Either he had no idea who they were or it didn't matter to him because he just seemed intent upon finding out what Bruce wanted and delivering it in a friendly but professional way. When they arrived, Joseph positioned himself outside the entrance, and Tony held the door open for Mal as the three of them entered the store. A bespectacled man with thinning sandy hair stepped forward as soon as Mal asked for Mr. Heidel. He introduced himself with smile and a formal handshake then placed a sign that read "Closed for Private Showing" on the door.

"I'm so pleased you're here. My name is Todd Heidel and this is my daughter Louise Frobisher," he said gesturing to a blonde woman in her late thirties or so who definitely looked like she was related to him if puckish noses, round cheeks, and deep blue eyes were an accurate barometer. "This has been our family's business for over 100 years. Mrs. Gupta mentioned someone is looking for an engagement ring, possibly a one-of-a-kind legacy piece from an earlier era?"

"Yes, I am," Bruce said stepping forward and offering his hand. "I'm Dr. Bruce Banner."

"Do you have any particular style, era, or gemstone in mind, Dr. Banner?" the jeweler inquired.

"She likes the Art Deco style, and I'd like the main stone to be a diamond."

"Ah, we have several vintage rings that fit that description and one of the designers we work with has several pieces that are Art Deco inspired. If you'll step over here, Dr. Banner, Louise will show you our current stock." Both long parallel walls and a mostly glass island counter were lined with display cases. Louise had unlocked what Bruce presumed to be the vintage display, which had a great variety of pieces he guessed were arranged by style and time period. The ornate Victorian and Edwardian pieces were easy to pick out as were the simple clean lines of the Modern era. Louise had four long display boxes laid out on the counter for him to examine. Bruce took a moment and gave Adam a mental nudge, _Now or never, Bud, if you want to help pick one out._

Bruce had mentally braced himself for another puppy-like mental onslaught, but instead he felt a sense of calm happiness and curiosity. Okay, they could handle this. Bruce gravitated more toward platinum or white gold than yellow gold, so that took several out of the running. That left a half dozen with diamonds as the central stone. Louise pulled these from their boxed group displays and assembled them in a line together to cut down on the clutter. Mal and Tony had a look as Bruce stepped back, "Well, what do you think?"

"I kind of like the pink one, but I don't think Natasha would," Tony offered.

"Practically speaking," said Mal, "if she's going to wear it every day, don't get one that's sits too tall above her fingers. They knock into everything and will eventually take a chunk out of you, too."

Bruce was in agreement, so that left three. Louise offered him a lighted jeweler's magnifying lens. She'd obviously done this before. All three rings were beautiful examples of the period's style with filigree work and clean geometric lines, but as Bruce handled them and examined the detailing, Adam had a clear favorite. "Okay," said Bruce, "I've been trying to talk myself out of the one with the emeralds for obvious reasons, but I think it's the right one."

Mal chuckled, "I was ready to argue with you if you didn't pick that one."

"It doesn't come with a tragic backstory or anything?" Tony asked Louise.

"No," she replied and shook her head, "it was passed down to a daughter who didn't have children, and a nephew sold it to us a few years ago. No ghosts or tragic love triangles for this one, just another chance for it to be enjoyed. It's setting is platinum and the center diamond is 1.27cts EGL certified and the cut is called Old European, which is a rounded cut. It's graded as G for color, which is a warmer 'near clear', and it's VS1 rated for clarity and is 'Internally Flawless.' In other words, it's clear and flawless with a slightly warmer tone," she said with smile. "I know that sounds like a bunch of code, but it's just the rating system gemologists use. Any questions so far?"

"How about the other stones?" Bruce asked."

"This ring has two triangular emeralds," Louise pointed out, "and twelve substantial singular cut diamonds set within six crescent-shape motifs. You can also see the floral design in the filigree on the shoulders and shank," she said as she identified the parts on the ring. "Those are lilies in the filigree; they stand for humility and devotion or peace and purity if you're wondering about the symbolism."

Bruce could hear Adam murmur, "Six moons and twelve diamonds for each month of the year. The emeralds look like they're holding the big diamond." He was clearly fascinated with the ring, so Bruce took his time looking it over.

"Say, Mrs. Frobisher, how fast could you have this delivered to New York?" Tony enquired.

"That depends on whether it needs to be resized or not—this is a six—and if we can find a courier," she said. "I used to do that, but not since having kids. I'd kidnap my husband and we'd go make a weekend of it," she reminisced.

"Really," said Tony, "how old are the kids now?"

"Oh, one's graduated college and married off and one's still in college," the blonde-headed woman said.

"You're pretty much empty nesters then. Made any plans for the weekend?" he said with a smile. "I bet kidnapping and a Broadway play would be fun."

"Are you serious, Mr. Stark?" Louise asked with raised eyebrows.

"As serious as they come. Call your husband. I have a jet at Lunken Field that will have you there in plenty of time for cocktails and dinner. Three and half days on me if you deliver this to Avengers Tower before 7:00pm EST."

"Let me call John then," she said and retired to the back of the store to call.

"God, Tony," Bruce almost groaned once Louise was out of ear shot, "thank you, but you did not have to do that."

"Grand gestures, my friend," Tony said with a grin. "By the way, Pep assures me a size six should work since it's pretty much in the middle of the size range," he said checking his texts.

"Don't worry," Bruce noted. "It's dead on Natasha's size."

"Lucky you. How did you find that out?"

"Nat helped me calibrate one of the scanners in the lab last fall, and we scanned her hands to count the mended bones."

"Sounds horribly romantic."

"Well, the kissing all the boo-boos part afterward was."

"I really hope you went back to your apartment for that."

"I'll never tell," Bruce said with a knowing smirk, "but she's had more broken bones than anyone on the team except Barton, and I certainly won't be kissing anything of his, except for maybe the kids and Laura."

"He's damn lucky if Laura still kisses him. By the way, I'm really glad you didn't try to find another marcasite piece to match that spider brooch and earrings," Tony remarked.

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked, feeling genuinely puzzled.

"It would have been right before Sokovia and Ultron and Sokovia, Part Two. It came in the mail while you were on walkabout. Flourish and Blotts? Botts? Watts?"

"Oh, Clovis and Watts, yah. Wow, that was like last April, but I didn't get the high bid. They returned my deposit money. Someone wanted the piece so much, it went for twice what Mr. Clovis recommended I put down as my ceiling limit. He was really apologetic when we spoke over the phone."

"Maybe the high bidder backed out?" Tony suggested.

"If that's the case, I'm pretty certain I was never charged for it. In fact, I remember walking the refund check down to the bank to deposit it because it looked so old-fashioned. Wait, you said there were earrings with it?"

"Matching little spiders hanging from a web where they attached to the backing to go on an ear. They all three had ruby eyes. Just two apiece not six times eight as if they had been biologically accurate."

"I'm telling you, Tony, there were no matching earrings with what we saw at the antique shop," Bruce insisted.

Tony was already on the phone. Apparently, the cell coverage was better here in the downtown area. "Hey, Nat, got a minute? Yah, I was talking to Bruce, and the subject of that spider brooch came up. Remember it? . . . Right. He says he didn't have the winning bid for it at that auction. The Clovis guy apologized and returned his money. Bruce also said there were no matching earrings, but what we saw definitely had them in the case with the brooch. . . . Yah, no shit. . . . The last place I remember it being was on the counter in the commons area kitchen. I don't think I got it in a safe or Bruce's old room." There was a pause and Bruce could almost make out the orders Natasha was giving to someone. "Okay, would you please put Pep on then? Yah, Bruce will Skype with you this evening after the rubber chicken dinner and glad-handing."

Tony let out a big puff of breath, "I think I just jazzed up her day."

Bruce shook his head. "I can't believe it took both of you this long to remember it."

"Hey, that was the same day AQ-1 came limping back home and Jennifer arrived to tell us you were still among the living, so I think some slack cutting is in order here." Tony turned his attention back to the phone as Pepper came on, "Hi, Hon, yah, I just dropped a brooch bomb on you. Oh, good, Nick is there. He and Hap can help move the fridge, so you can check behind it because Natasha should not be straining herself. . . . Good, tell him to get off his butt. Listen, I need you to play cupid or really I just need you to help me play cupid . . ."

Bruce noted Louise was off the phone with her husband now. She had a broad smile on her face and looked extremely pleased, so it must be good news. "Will you able to deliver it, Mrs. Frobisher?" he asked.

"Yes, John's packing right now," she replied with a big grin.

"In New York on Valentine's Day, you'll have a blast," Bruce said. "Mrs. Gupta will help you with the details, but I bet the big guy out front will pick you up and take you to the airport. His name is Joseph. Don't make fun of the Hummer."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Louise said. "Let's go see how Dad is coming with the paperwork. Were you going to need it resized?"

"No, her finger is a size 6, so it's perfect as is," he said.

Mal and Mr. Heidel had the haggling over the price and the paperwork ready to go, so Bruce signed where the "Xs" were and provided the appropriate chunk of change. "Oh, Mrs. Frobisher," he said, turning to face Louise, "one really important detail: please don't refer to it as an 'engagement' ring. Ms. Romanoff is really superstitious, so it's a _promise_ ring."

"Oh, that's so sweet, Dr. Banner. I haven't heard anyone do that since high school," Louise said with a sentimental smile.

"Yah, me either," Bruce laughed, "but I'm going to give it a try as a workaround for whatever is holding her back."

"Well, I'll be your good luck charm then because every ring I've delivered has produced positive results. I can't help you past the proposal, but we'll do our best to get to a yes."

"Hmm," said her father clearing his throat, "sounds like you're dealing with the little mermaid there, Dr. Banner. Ask her to promise to _think about it_. Once she puts Adamsfort on, she won't say no when you do ask her."

"Adamsfort? Is that its name?" Bruce asked.

"Right, we name estate purchases after the family if they have no objections. The history and description are here in the paperwork if you're interested. I'm surprised Louise didn't rattle off the whole story to you."

"She hit the numbers and the important parts," Bruce said. "I think Mr. Stark's recruitment pitch may have taken precedent after that."

"All right, Pop, I have to go if I'm going to deliver this on time," Louise said, and her father handed her the ring in a currier's case and she gave him a peck on the cheek.

"My niece with be in touch with you shortly, Mrs. Frobisher," said Mal. "Joseph will pick you and your husband up at you house within the hour."

"Thank you," said Bruce, shaking Louise's hand. "Take care and be safe. Have fun, too."

Louise exited and Tony finally hung up the phone. "Are we all settled up here?" he asked.

"I think we are," said Mal, and she looked at Bruce and Mr. Heidel for confirmation. Bruce shook his head.

"I have what I need, Mrs. Gupta. We have each other's numbers if there are questions. Don't hesitate to contact me." He offered his hand to Bruce, "It's been a pleasure, Dr. Banner. Mr. Stark. Mrs. Gupta."

They finished shaking hands and left the shop. Joseph looked relieved that they were moving again.

"So how was Pepper?" Bruce asked.

"She wouldn't say what was going on, but they were doing more than looking for jewelry and picking out baby furniture. You'll have to see if Nat will talk to you tonight, but I think they're keeping us out of the loop, Buddy," Tony concluded.

"She wouldn't say what was going on, but they were doing more than looking for jewelry and picking out baby furniture. You'll have to see if Nat will talk to you tonight, but I think they're keeping us out of the loop, Buddy," Tony concluded.

"That could mean anything from painting the living room to burying a body, so we might as well pretend to be oblivious unless you want to try and squeeze Hap for information," Bruce suggested.

"The thought had occurred to me," Tony admitted.

"How serious do you think this spider brooch going missing is going to be?" Bruce asked. "It was only about two inches across and the body was only about a half inch wide and three-fourths of an inch long, but I suppose with micro and nanotechnology being what they are, it could have held something."

"I'm more worried about the earrings since those were probably not part of the set," Tony confessed. "Natasha and I both looked at them, but we didn't exactly examine them all that well. Damn, the crew at the front desk should have scanned and x-rayed them before bringing the package up. Wait . . . I actually x-rayed it to see what the hell it was. The brooch showed up as solid metal, but I can't remember if the earrings did. I'm sure I dumped that image. Let me text, Natasha. Friday still might be able to recover something since it was in the infirmary, and we've not used that system very often." Tony took out his phone and texted as they walked.

Bruce noted they were about a block away from Fountain Square and the foot traffic was starting to pick up. Most of the people they passed were downtown office workers, but there were still a few shoppers and family groups. He looked back at Joseph and Mal, "Do you want to grab a bite, Joseph, before you go pick up Mr. and Mrs. Frobisher? My cousin tells me the food trucks on the square are worth checking out."

Joseph looked at Mal with an eyebrow cocked, "Have we got time, Mrs. G.?"

"If there isn't a line, you should have time," she said.

As they approached Fountain Square, Bruce had no trouble detecting plenty of tempting aromas. There were four food trucks parked on the south side of the granite-paved square and a couple of tents with local chili restaurant logos. Tony finished up texting Natasha, so he finally looked up. "Oh, holy grail, I think we've finally reached civilization."

One of the trucks specialized in tacos and another advertised local barbeque, but the one Tony had fixated on had Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine with a chalkboard menu proclaiming "Shawarma and Gyros". "Well, we know what you're having, Tony," chuckled Mal.

Bruce hadn't thought he was hungry, but he soon gravitated back to the tents with the local chili chains. One of the unique things he remembered about the area's cuisine was Cincinnati chili, which was served over spaghetti and covered in finely shredded cheddar cheese and called a "three-way" because of the number of components. If you wanted beans, it was a four-way, etc. The chili always had a hint of cinnamon because the original families of restaurateurs had all been Greek. He'd probably have a three-way or a chilidog before leaving town, but what he wanted right now was an order of Greek or seasoned fries with feta and aioli sauce. Natasha would have killed him if he came home with the garlicky aioli saturating his breath, but one of the few perks of being gone for a few days was not having to worry about that. Besides, if Tony was going to overdose on the tzakis, it was only prudent to immunize himself and fight garlic sauce with garlic sauce. Bruce was glad when he found what he wanted on the menu at the first tent and placed his order. He was a little surprised to find Joseph behind him ordering a "coney crate" with the works. "Have you had the chili before," Bruce asked the burley guard.

"I tried one yesterday and it didn't kill me," he said with a toothy grin. "The chili is weird, but the cheese dogs are as good as anywhere." Their orders were soon up, so they joined Tony and Mal who were sitting on the edge of the waterless fountain in the middle of the plaza that gave the square its name. Bruce remembered it was called "The Genius of Water," but he realized as he oriented himself that the fountain had been further south and closer to the street. A nine-foot-tall bronze image of a woman with her arms outstretched was the focal point and she was flanked by four other figures representing the practical uses of water and four figures of children around the outer edge representing the pleasures of water. Although the fountain was shutdown for the winter, the bronze sculptures were still lovely to see. Tony had his order of shawarma and Mal was nibbling on falafel, so Bruce and Joseph sat down with them in their sunny spot.

They all were hungrier than they thought so no one said anything until Tony finally broke the silence, "So does Barton intend to use those pictures he's been taking as bribe material or is he making a documentary on our visit to the Queen City?"

Mal cleared her throat and took a drink from her water bottle, "I'm going to pretend I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm sure he's texting them back to at least one or maybe two women in New York to reassure them you're not in trouble yet."

"Just try to avoid staring at him, Stark. He has the far parameter, and we'd like him to be the ace in the air if we need him," said Joseph.

"Right," said Tony a little sheepishly, "don't you have a nice middle-aged courier to go pick up?"

Joseph downed the last of his six coneys and smacked his lips loudly as he licked off his fingers, "I believe you're right." The big guard cleaned his hands and face off with a napkin and gave them a quick wave as he headed across the plaza to the entrance to the parking garage and disappeared.

"Gentlemen, I think it's time to go inspect your rooms and relax a bit before this evening."

"Good idea," said Tony, "I'm going to need a lot of mouthwash and tooth brushing, but man that hit the spot."

"Me, too," said Bruce. "That was a garlicky blast from the past. Tomorrow morning you're going to have to try goetta."

"What-a?" Tony asked.

"It's a breakfast thing," Bruce said. "You're better off if you don't ask questions."

"Sounds good," said Adam, "but next time I want to try ice cream."


	34. Chapter 34

34: Old Scars and Spiders

 **Summary:** Natasha deals with morning sickness and an unwelcome intruder with a little help from her friends. Pre-Brutash Nat and Bruce flashback and a persuasive conversation with the formidable Mrs. Barton.

 **Notes:** My eternal thanks to Autumn_Froste for her excellent beta help. I'm going to leave it to your imagination what Bette Midler ringtone Clint would pick for Laura.

She had kept the noodles and broth down, and Natasha suspected that might not be the least of her accomplishments today. Now, if the data would just start cooperating, that would make life a lot easier. So far, there hadn't been a single hit on their two would-be kidnappers, which might mean they were just that obscure or their identities were hidden that deep. Tony's phone call and follow-up text about the brooch had just complicated things. Hap and Pepper had started to take apart the kitchen area and then Hap thought to look on top of the oversized refrigerator instead of just behind it. The outer packaging and the velveteen case were there, but the container was empty: no brooch and no earrings.

Natasha was in the infirmary running a recovery program with Friday on the X-Ray unit's internal memory and data storage. It looked like they might be getting something, so she was being as patient as she could while Friday worked at reconstructing the images.

The last time she'd been in here with a serious injury, Bruce had used the same machine to check her left hand and forearm to make sure he didn't need to stabilize her arm and send her on to a "real doctor," so she could be treated for a more serious fracture. That night Bruce had also treated Natasha for a number of abrasions, contusions, and other lesser injuries she had managed to suffer. As the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft dropped her off, Bruce had met her on the landing platform with a wheelchair and been quite adamant about her using it. Anyone who thought Bruce was a pushover just hadn't worked with him under the right circumstances.

"Sit. Now," he'd firmly ordered her, not a bit of humor or flexibility in his tone. "If you're going to insist on using me instead of a proper specialist, we play by my rules, Ms. Romanoff." Keeping her head high and concentrating hard on walking without a limp, she sat down in the chair and gave him as reassuring and serene of a smile as possible as she tried not to grit her teeth. "Anything you say, Doc." She knew she wasn't fooling him, but she kept up the stiff-upper-lip routine because otherwise she'd be swearing. With Clint she'd have been cursing a blue streak in four languages, but with Steve or Bruce she made the effort to behave because it didn't feel right.

Bruce had finally smiled back at her very briefly, though certainly not in a condescending way, before wheeling her to the elevator and taking her to the infirmary for treatment. "So, what happened?" he finally asked as he wheeled her out of the elevator.

"Something large and metal fell, and I didn't move all of me fast enough," she said a bit tightly. He didn't need to know the details.

"Did you hit your head?" he asked, leaning forward to look her in the eyes and use a small flashlight to check her pupil dilation.

"No, no danger of a concussion, Spasibo."

"Is everything that's hurt on your left side?" he said as he sized up the dirt and skid marks on her suit and the way she was holding herself.

"Yes, my hand hurts the worst. The rest is probably just scrapes and bruising," she said with as relaxed of a voice as she could muster. When he backed the wheelchair into the room, Bruce was careful and efficient as he helped her up on the examination table without scolding or teasing her. They had worked together long enough now that he barely hesitated to step into her space when appropriate, and now he edged closer to wrap an arm around her and lift under her right arm without being asked. At this point, it was obvious to him that she was in a lot more pain than she had been letting on.

He gently held her damaged hand and probed the bones and manipulated the joints, "Can you move your fingers for me? Good. Turn your wrist." Natasha slowly complied. "Are you going to be okay with me getting this X-Rayed first or should I start the IV?" he asked.

Natasha swallowed her pride, "Do the IV first. I've not taken anything for the pain yet, and it's really starting to bother me."

"All right, but first we'll need to get your arms out of your uniform, especially if you want to keep it in one piece." Bruce looked at the extra zippers at the cuffs and ankles designed to accommodate gloves and heavy boots and what he guessed were Kevlar inserts and a hood. "Do you need me to help you with, uh, any particular part first? "

He looked so nervous, blushing and averting his eyes already, she had to smile, "Stand by, I'll let you know, Doc." She managed to get the front zipper down, but then couldn't get her shoulders wiggled out of the suit. "Okay, now I need you to help me with the shoulders. Quit fretting, Bruce, I have on a sports bra and shorts underneath, so you're not going to see much more skin than during a workout. If this wasn't my favorite winter-weight uniform, I'd just have you cut me out of it."

"All right," he said as he stood facing her, and gingerly unzipped the cuff openings from her wrists up as she offered them to him. Bruce then stepped around her and held the material away from her skin as she slipped the right arm out easily and then went more slowly with the left since there was some dried blood from a scrape adhering the sleeve to her skin in a couple of spots. Bruce reached around her and held the end of the sleeve so she could peel it the rest of the way off and wriggle out. They both gave an audible sigh of relief to have her this far out of the complex uniform without further injuring her.

"Okay, where's your easiest vein on the right?" he asked as he stepped behind her to set up the equipment and retrieve the needle and saline lock.

"There's a good one over the ring finger. That's where they usually stick me," Natasha informed him.

Bruce had the IV in and the drip hung with a strong painkiller in only a blessed few minutes. He'd done this for her before, but it had been on the Quinjet and had taken longer because he was helping the S.H.I.E.L.D. medical technician in the middle of their takeoff. He much preferred the infirmary since it wasn't moving and the lighting was better. As the painkiller started to take hold, he saw her shoulders visibly relax. "Better now?" he asked.

"Getting there," she replied, her voice much less tense.

"Okay, we're going to have to get you out of the rest of your uniform now." He unzipped the bottom cuffs at her ankles and removed her boots before he had her stand up so he could pull the remains of the suit off over her hips. He'd seen her in tank tops before, but this was the first time he'd seen this much of her back and midriff with their collection of scars. He barely stopped himself from a sharp intake of breath as he compulsively began to count the marks on her pale skin. This was one of his impulsive quirks that he would later recognize was part of being on the autism spectrum. In the present moment, Bruce found himself enthralled with the marks she carried on her body. They were pink, purplish, and white, depending upon the age; some were raised and angry; some old and almost completely faded. God knew how she'd gotten all of them. How he wanted to touch them, to put his lips to them and kiss each one and taste her skin. He quickly jerked himself back to reality because this wasn't going to go any further, even in his head. He couldn't let it.

Bruce gathered up the soiled suit and dropped it in a biohazard bag so she could handle it later. He helped her back on the table and gently cleaned away the worst of the blood from her arm and shoulder with antiseptic wipes. As he did this, an older scar on the back of her left shoulder caught his eye because this one he knew for what it was.

"When did you get the cigarette burn on your shoulder," he asked as casually as he could manage.

"Wow, I'm surprised you can still see it. That one dates back to childhood, before I went away to school." She paused to think about it a moment, "I can't even recall the details, but I got it at home. How did you know what it was, Bruce?"

He looked at her for a moment and decided if she trusted him this far with her hurts, he could trust her with one of his. Bruce took off his lab coat and laid it on the bench top before he rolled up the left sleeve of his dress shirt to just above the elbow. He held his shirtsleeve up and flexed the joint to reveal a very similar round white scar hiding beneath the dark hairs. Like Natasha's, his scar also dated back to his childhood. "My dad gave me that," he said almost mechanically without emotion creeping into his voice.

"Accident or on purpose?" she blurted without meaning to say it out loud. The painkiller must be affecting her a bit.

"He said it was to teach me a lesson, so I imagine it was on purpose," Bruce said with a little sadness finally coloring his tone.

"I'm sorry," she said and compulsively reached out to stroke his forearm. He almost pulled back, but held steady as she traced the scar with the cool tip of her index finger and lightly ran her fingers down his arm to his wrist and then shifted to hold his hand and gently squeeze it. He held her hand in his for a moment. It felt nice, but after returning the squeeze, he let it go.

"You have really warm hands," she said. "Warm hands, warm heart?"

"I think it goes, 'Cold hands, warm heart,'" he whispered hoarsely, and she noticed the flush of red stealing up his throat. Then it hit her, Natasha knew she wanted him, and she knew at that moment he wanted her, too. She imagined the feel of his warm hands on her bare skin, and she wanted nothing more than to meet those soft-looking lips of his with her own, but she couldn't do it. Not this way. She knew it would be wrong because, no matter how deliberately and earnestly she might approach this, Bruce would think he took advantage of her while she was "medicated" and under his care. If something were going to happen, it would have to wait. Of course, it didn't help that she'd put him in the position of acting as her physician, a job he took seriously whether or not he had an actual degree or had taken an oath. She trusted him to do a service for her, and she knew he'd insist on seeing the whole thing through.

Still blushing and looking a bit rattled, Bruce stepped back and turned to set up the machine and the equipment. "Okay, let's lift your arm, and I'll put the protective cover around you," he said as he pulled the leaded poncho-like garment from a shelf.

"What's that for?" she asked.

"To shield the rest of you from exposure to the radiation from the X-Ray. You've done this before. Didn't they use one?"

"I guess. I tend to be passed out most of the time when it's serious," she said with a bit of a shrug. Bruce rolled his eyes at that and huffed out a breath in disbelief.

"You need to be careful with your reproductive health," Bruce murmured, "or else you'll end up like me." He carefully helped her off the table and draped the heavy leaded garment over her. He then maneuvered her along with the IV stand over to the grid-covered positioning board under the machine's cone-shaped barrel. He was glad this was a digital display so he could get instant results, but he still had to leave the room to operate the control panel—not that exposure would have mattered in his case. Luckily, she held still and he got clear images of her hand and forearm from the angles he needed, and he could determine no bones were broken though she was going to have some spectacular bruises. He sat her back down on the exam table and cleaned up the last of the abrasions before collecting some ice packs from the freezer and painkillers from the locked pharmacy cabinet. "Do you feel up to heading to your own bed or do you want to try out the hospital bed next door?" he asked her.

"My bed, please," Natasha almost groaned. All she wanted to do was slip into a t-shirt and sleep this off.

"Okay, but that means the IV is coming out. It's almost empty anyway." Bruce soon had her free of the tubes and stand. He was glad she didn't oppose using the wheelchair to deliver her to her apartment, but she insisted on walking across the threshold herself with him supporting her increasingly groggy maneuvers. Bruce had visited her apartment before, so he knew the layout, but this was the first time he'd seen the bedroom. He was a little surprised at the jewel tones (he'd pictured pastels for some reason), but it was warmly eclectic like the rest of the apartment, much as he'd expected. She had plenty of pillows, so he soon had her dressed in an over-sized t-shirt for bed and propped on her side with cold packs on her hand and hip. He stood there debating whether to stay or just come back and check on her in a few hours. She didn't have a concussion, but he was concerned at how fast the painkiller was acting. He'd calculated the dosage by her weight, but maybe he'd been off? There was a chair in the other room he could probably move to the bedside if . . .

To his surprise, she grabbed his sleeve, "Stay, Bruce. Please. I don't want to be alone."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked, thinking of how he terrified her in the past. Natasha hadn't said what her mission had been, but she was looking haunted now. He didn't like to pry, but there seemed to be more going on than she would admit. He understood that. If she thought he was preferable to whatever memories were stalking her, he saw that as a compliment and a token of her trust, which he didn't want to disappoint.

"Yes, I'm sure, Bruce. There's plenty of room here in the bed. Just hold me," she said. "Please? I won't bite and no one else is here to even judge."

Half a dozen reasons not to do this flitted through his head, including the flack he was going to take from Tony and the questionable ethics and the very real temptation of wanting more from her. Then he noted she was starting to shake, probably from the medication. That might be his fault. "Okay," he finally decided. He took off his shoes and his dress shirt and laid it with his glasses and wallet on a clear spot on her desk. He turned off the bedside lamp and lay down beside her on top of the covers in the big spoon position, so she would stay propped on her good side.

She leaned back against him and reached behind her to guide his left hand and drape it over her waist. "Hold me, Bruce. You're so warm. I feel safe with you," she whispered. That brought a real lump to his throat. He instinctively wanted to warn her and push her away, but he didn't. Before long her breathing evened out, and he was able to finally relax and drift off to sleep himself. _Safe. He felt safe and trusted_.

When she awoke, the sun had long been up and he was gone. There was a bottle of pain medication and a glass of water on the nightstand with instructions written in his grid-straight handwriting. She tried to right herself, but that movement made the rest of the world wobble and spin. She flopped back down and lay there. Damn, she'd probably scared Bruce off completely. This was going to be really awkward since they couldn't avoid working together and the lullaby was getting so close to a field test. How stupid could she have been? It was so arrogant of her to push him like that, but there was a mutual connection, a real attraction that she hadn't just imagined. Yet, he was so damned skittish. Then she realized someone was in her kitchen, and if her nose was correct, there was actual cooking going on, too. She willed herself to sit up as she forced her legs to move and plopped her feet on the floor.

Bruce heard her moving and came to the door, "How are you feeling?"

"Sore, stiff, swollen, sarcastic," she said, looking at him. He wasn't too long out of the shower because his dark curls were still damp. He'd shaved and put on jeans and a dark sweater with a white t-shirt underneath. What surprised her for some reason were the white socks and slippers she'd never seen him wear.

"If 'sort of hungry' is on the list, I brought down eggs and stuff to make you some breakfast to order—if I'm not being too forward about using your kitchen."

"Oh, no, that's okay. Make yourself at home. I mean, you don't have to do this, Bruce."

He gave her a rather guilty smile. "I think I dosed you a little high on the pain meds last night, so I wanted to make sure you're doing all right. Coffee is ready."

"Okay, two eggs over easy, but not too runny?" she replied. "Let me get cleaned up first." She started to stand, and he was quickly at her side, steadying her without being too pushy about it.

"Are you going to be all right in the shower?" he asked.

"Yah," she said huskily. "The more I move, the better I'm doing with this." She flexed her left hand. It was a bit swollen and the hip was tender, but the rest of the complaints seemed to be superficial. After seeing her safely to the bathroom, he gave her one last concerned look and shut the door. By the time she was out and dressed, he had a plate with two eggs over easy, toast, and a couple of yellowish disks of something that wasn't sausage.

"Sit down," he said, gesturing to the nearest chair at the small dining table as she approached. He poured her a mug of coffee and set it down beside a glass of orange juice at her place before he sat down across the table from her with his own plate of food. Seeing her probe the yellow circles, he smiled. "Think of it as polenta, but where I learned to make it, they call it fried corn meal mush. They're already buttered, but you can put syrup or jam on them, too."

"I've heard of it," she said and gamely sliced into one of the medallions with her fork and tried it. The browned outside was crisp and the inside was creamy and naturally tasted a bit sweet like cornbread. "Not bad," she said and finished the disk before starting in on the eggs, which were done perfectly to order and not too runny. Bruce smiled and watched her eat between taking bites of his own breakfast.

"So," she said once she'd gotten down to the toast and juice, "I'm guessing you were a hash-slinger at some point, aye, Doc?"

"Then you'd be right, kid," he drawled back. "A diner can be a good place to lay low when the cops are on the lookout for ya. A good cook can get three square meals and a room with a cot in back if he's lucky." Bruce raised an eyebrow and sipped at his cooling coffee, watching her over the rim of the mug.

"Something tells me you're not entirely kidding about that," she responded, mopping up the last bit of egg yolk with her final piece of toast, fashionable or not.

"I know my way around a grill and a fryer," he said coyly.

"Now there's where I have to question your story, Doc. Every short order cook I've known has burn scars from his fingers up to his elbows, but your arms are almost unmarked."

Bruce leaned back in his chair and stared at the mug in his hands before he looked her in the eye, "One of the few perks when I exit a situation as the Other Guy is that any wounds I have usually heal up completely, so there are no scars if a wound is still healing. If they're like the cigarette burn I showed you and predate the Hulk, then I get to keep them."

"Wow, I guess that's a good reason for not having them," she said seriously.

He downed the last cold swallow of coffee in his mug, "Now is when you're supposed to say how lucky I am not to have new scars."

"No. I won't say that. All scars have value. They mark the lessons we've learned and the wounds we've survived. I wouldn't erase any of mine, even if there weren't a consequence for doing that. They're a part of me, and I want to keep them," she concluded.

Bruce smiled slightly and nodded his head in understanding. _By God, she got it_. "So now do you believe me, Ms. Romanoff, when I say my résumé has a few lines devoted to greasy-spoon food prep?"

"Oh, I'd rate you above a greasy spoon. You must have worked in some classier dives."

Bruce smiled at that, "I'll never tell. So what do you have planned for the day, Natasha?"

"Laundry and laying low, why?" she asked because it was the beginning of a few days off duty for her.

"Well, as your physician, I'd like to suggest going for a walk since you have no business in the gym for a few days, but you still need to loosen up your muscles and keep moving."

"Do you have any walk in particular in mind?"

"I have an errand to run up in one of the boroughs, and it's in a neighborhood with plenty of interesting places to window shop. I wouldn't mind some company."

She had gone with him and they'd had a really pleasant morning strolling several blocks and checking out quaint little businesses, including an antique store, Clovis and Watts, which had pending estate sale items on display that would be up for bid the next month. She had immediately spotted the marcasite spider brooch, and it had been perfect, but going to the trouble of coming back for an auction didn't appeal to her. While she continued to browse the inventory, Bruce had struck up a conversation with a gentleman he later told her was one of the owners. Before they left, Bruce had shaken the man's hand and taken a business card, but she'd had no idea he had seriously put in a bid for the piece until Tony had shown her the package back in May.

Friday's voice brought Natasha out of her daydream, "This is the best I can do, Nat. The first angle is as clear as a mug shot on the brooch, but the section with the earrings is corrupted. The second side angle is much clearer."

Natasha looked at the display. "Good work, Friday. Could you do a 3D rendering of these?"

"I thought you might want that," the Interface noted and an accurate image of the brooch appeared on screen. "The earrings are more of an educated guess since they are only about 25% metal."

Natasha vaguely remembered what they looked like, but the rendering seemed reasonable. "Friday, how likely is it any of these are hollow?"

"My money is on them being full of something and being mobile," remarked Friday.

"What do you think their purpose is?"

"You're the spy. They are likely here to listen and transmit or infect or both."

"I know. I just wanted to confirm it before I broke it to the guys. Go ahead and tell the others what we've found. I'll meet them back in the commons kitchen. Please list and chart possible targets and routes this thing might have taken, and we need to figure out how to track it."

As Nick, Pepper, and Happy studied the diagrams, Natasha reasoned through possible methods of tracking such a small piece of tech in a rather large tower. Its outer shell metal's profile didn't appear to be anything special enough to trace, but as she looked into what could power it, the type of battery it would need to operate long term would have to contain one of the platinum group of metals such as iridium or palladium, similar to what Tony used in his first arc reactor. "Friday, is there any way to trace this?" she asked.

"Only while the battery is in use and putting off enough radiation for me to detect," the Interface replied.

"Look for it, Friday. That's all we've got."

"Well, we might have more than that," Nick said as he shared a diagram he'd created on a pad, using Friday's rendering. It illustrated how the three pieces might fit together to make a mobile recorder and transmitter. "I'm pretty sure that's what we're dealing with, Natasha. I can't definitively say it didn't carry some sort of other payload, but if it's been here for eight months and nothing has happened, odds are against it doing double duty."

"Well, if it's transmitting, we should be able to find it," Pepper said as she stepped up behind Natasha to look at the diagram.

"Friday, that's two possible ways to track this thing," Natasha said.

"Working on it right now." Friday started posting data flow records and scans and looking for cross-references. Soon there was a recognizable cluster of pings tapping into the data stream at six-hour intervals at 5:00am and 5:00pm.

"Well, it appears we have a pattern, now let's track the signal down," said Nick. "You can dig into what it's transmitting later."

"Unfortunately, until there's another transmission, I can only isolate it to this floor," reported Friday.

"Well, at least that makes some sense," Nick said with a humorless laugh. "If you want to dig up dirt and rumors, the kitchen and the living room would be the logical places to hangout."

"Or the bedrooms," Natasha said under her breath. "Friday, does it look like this thing is mobile or has it stayed put?"

"It has moved around, but so far it seems to pick spots along the outside parameter to transmit. I would start looking in the commons areas and spread out from there. Unless it's smarter than I think, it will head for the parameter as we get closer to 5:00p.m."

"Okay, we all know what this thing probably looks like," said Natasha. "Let's see if we can't find it before it sends out another information dump at 5:00p.m."

"Where would I hide if I were a mechanical, bejeweled spider with miniature satellite dishes on my back?" Happy ask out loud.

"You know," said Pepper. "This would go much faster if we had more eyes and hands searching. If it's okay with you, there are five underworked interns at the front desk who are young and flexible and have passed extreme background checks."

"Why not?" said Natasha, ready to throw her hands in the air. She turned to catch Nick giving her one of those disapproving, one-eyed stares. "Like you've never done something similar to this with new recruits," she said to him.

He snorted, "Okay, as long as this thing is found, that's what counts, but you better confiscate their phones and smart watches before you swear them to secrecy and threaten them with their lives."

"I'm going to do that and offer them a reward for finding a missing piece of jewelry. They don't need to know what it really is."

"You mean not till the damn thing moves like a real spider," he snapped back.

"Look, I could call in Scott Lang and see if he can cover the place with ants, but I don't think he'd be able to get here in time," she said.

"We'll call that Plan B then if your bright-eyed interns don't find it in an hour. In the meantime..."

"I'm texting Scott right now." Luckily, the newly recruited teammate was at the Avengers facility upstate, so he almost immediately called her back to discuss the situation. Scott was genuinely excited to have a chance to help and was soon on his way and due to arrive within the hour. Of course, he was also bringing friends. She couldn't wait.

After she hung up with Scott, Natasha had to sit down on one of the bar stools beside the kitchen counter as a wave of nausea and now fatigue made her feel unsteady on her feet. Nick saw her start to flag, but gave her some space. When Pepper arrived with her squad of interns, Nick stepped in to instruct the troops before Natasha could move. Pepper also noticed her friend was looking ill again. The tall strawberry blonde gave Fury a look, knowing he was one of the few people Natasha would listen to when it came to taking care of herself. Nick stepped over to where Natasha was still perched on the barstool. "Go back to your apartment and lay down for a bit or I'll have Happy escort you there," he ordered. "We've got this."

She could see the interns were organized and going about their search in a systematic fashion, which kept her from making one last effort to stay. "Aye-aye," she said and left walking as steadily as she could. Once in the apartment, she pulled a can of ginger ale out of the refrigerator and a box of crackers from the pantry before she plopped down on the couch and closed her eyes. God, she missed Bruce. Her thoughts were instantly interrupted by a corny Bette Midler ringtone that Clint had picked for Laura. Natasha eagerly pulled out her phone and answered it.

"Hey, Laura, what's going on at Casa Barton?"

"My sisters just left, Nate's taking a nap, and the kids are at school, so not much for the next 15 to 20 minutes."

"Sounds heavenly," said Natasha, letting her head rest against the back of the couch.

"Well, Auntie Nat, I hear you have some exciting new developments going on yourself."

"Did a bird with a big, fat gossipy mouth tell you?"

"Well, to be honest, I kind of helped him piece it together when he started asking why someone would fly several hundred miles to see a urologist."

"Yah, that is kind of a giveaway that something is up."

There was a snort on the other end of the call. "Yah, somebody's something was up all right."

"You have a dirty mind, Mrs. Barton."

"I know I do. Well... have you talked to Bruce yet?"

"No, we're supposed to Skype this evening."

"You mean you haven't told him yet?"

"I was considering not telling him till they got back on Sunday, but that plan has kind of been blown to pieces."

"Oh, there's no way you could wait that long. He has to have pieced things together by now. Even if he didn't, Tony has probably been teasing the crap out of him all morning."

"Chyort! You're probably right, but Bruce will likely be so stunned he won't even have noticed what Tony is doing."

"You don't think he'll be happy about this?"

"Are you kidding? He'll be ecstatic, but he may not completely believe that things are okay until he's seen the ultrasound and then felt the baby kick. Plus, you know he'll be really worried about the radiation and the genetics, too, but it's going to take time to do the testing."

"What does your obstetrician say?"

"Here, let me send you the ultrasounds. I know it's not your specialty, but you should be able to get the gist, right?" There was a brief bit of lag time as the images arrived and Laura evaluated them on her pad. As a radiologist working from home, she was used to inspecting X-Rays and other types of scans, but she'd also been through all this from the patient side three times. The last thing Laura looked at was the video of the wriggling little person.

"Nat, this baby looks beautiful. I don't see anything to be concerned about health wise. I'm sure the OB went over the measurements and other details with you, right?"

"Yah, she did this morning. It's just now sinking in. This is so hard to believe," she took a deep breath and held it.

"Oh, sweetie, I wish I was there to give you a hug and hold your hand. It's scary because things are going to change, and it's all new, but you two are ready for this. You're going to be great parents.

"Were you and Clint ready?"

"Yah, we'd been planning it for about a year, so we were as prepped as we could be, but you're never going to be able to cover every angle. I was able to stay home with Cooper and then, when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, I started doing contract work with different healthcare networks from home, so that wasn't a problem. The worst part was, we'd just started renovating the house and replacing the pipes when we got pregnant with Coop, so Clint had to get my brother to help finish up so there would be enough water pressure to take a shower. We were replacing windows when I was pregnant with Lila. There's never a perfect time, but life goes on, Hon. But tell me, how are you feeling?"

"It all started with me getting the dry heaves this morning, and now I can't stand the smell of anything with meat in it. So far I've kept down the noodles and broth from lunch, and I have my ginger ale and crackers here. Now, I'm drag-ass tired and we have a data breach, but you don't need to hear about that."

"Didn't hear a thing. Data what?"

"How long did you have the cravings and morning sickness stuff?"

"No problems with Cooper, but I wanted to eat greens all the time. That didn't help with the prenatals and vitamins warring it out with everything I ate—the less said the better. That lasted two miserable months and was gone. I felt rotten for the first month and tired for the next two. Nate was pretty much a breeze, but I had like super smell and taste for a while, too. I'd get bursts of energy and then turn into a rug. Anyway, so that's all pretty normal, and to answer your question, you have maybe as long as two months of this, but it's more likely you'll be over it quicker than that."

"Okay, good to know. I hope the rug impersonation part doesn't last much longer because there's just too much to do here for me to go comatose for long."

"Nat, you cannot do it all, so just get that idea out of your head. You're body is going to go through a bunch of changes. You're making another person in there. I know Bruce will pick up the slack and there are other people there who will help, so just get used to saying _please_ and _thank you_."

Natasha laughed, "You don't know what craziness is going on in the commons area right now that I'm not there to ride herd on. Nick and Pepper had it under control when I left, but that's a temporary state of affairs."

"I can just imagine," Laura said with a giggle. "Aren't you getting excited? I'm getting excited! I know Pepper has to be excited."

"Oh, yah. She's already planning the shower, so talk to her about that if you're into organized torture."

"That's not torture. It can be fun. I hope she includes the guys because otherwise Clint will crash it."

"I'll be sure to tell her it has to be unisex, but she might want some help."

"I'll ask her. Well, if you're out of questions—for the moment—let me ask something even though it's none of my business."

Natasha steeled herself, "Okay, hit me, Mrs. Barton."

"When are you two going to tie the knot already?"

Natasha groaned, "I knew that was going to come up."

"Look, it's been seven months since he's been back and you've been together. The chemistry is for real. You've worked with him for going on six years. I've talked to Bruce—God, that man loves you—I know he's asked you more than once."

"Four times," Natasha said quietly.

"So what's the holdup? You two are the most comfortable fit I've ever seen, and now you're going to have a child together."

"You are not making me feel better, Laura."

"I'm not trying to."

"Look, this is not romantic, it's something I'm not proud of at all."

"So spit it out, Nat."

"When I was a lot younger, before I'd even crossed paths with Clint, one of my first assignments was to seduce a man who was an up and comer among what would become the oligarchs. It wasn't hard. He was older and liked the attention he got with me on his arm. I spent time with the family and his younger brother—he was just a kid really about my own age—fell for me hard. I was young and stupid and cruel, and I had both of them in the palm of my hand. It was heady stuff for a teenager. I played with him like a cat teasing a mouse, and Madam encouraged it, even though it wasn't the mission. We were a regular Estella and Miss Havisham, and I did worse than break his heart. It was all a calculation on my part to feel powerful and in control, but I got him killed because he insisted that he wanted to marry me, which is what ticked the older brother's boss off. The kid went against the big boss's wishes and "Bang!" He was mysteriously found dead. It took years, but the older brother eventually took out the boss. Years of blood and stupidity. I was power tripping, and the kid paid for it. I swore I'd never rush into something like that again."

"So you don't want to get married at all? You were just a kid," Laura objected.

"I didn't say that. I just want to get through the year then make it official."

"Oh, Nat. Come on and forgive yourself. How old were you?"

"Seventeen," Natasha almost whispered.

"You may think you deserve to be punished for these past indiscretions, but you were basically brainwashed and manipulated into that behavior. The one you're hurting now is Bruce."

"I know. I just really want to start this off right. I want to put this ghost to rest."

"Listen to yourself, Nat. Refusing to start something isn't the same as starting something off right. It's just stalling. Is putting Bruce off till, what, May, going to make a difference? That seems pretty arbitrary. How's that fair to him?"

"It's not fair," Natasha admitted. "He's trusted me and gone along with it, but you're right. It's not fair to him."

"So give him a break and give yourself one, too. Let him ask you. It will make him so happy," Laura pleaded.

"I'll think about it. Okay?"

"Well, don't think too long, or he may not ask you when you want," Laura warned.

"Okay-okay, I'm sure he and Tony will be cooking up something, so I won't have to wait that long."

"Well, I was going to ask if you have names picked out yet, but that's probably jumping the gun."

"It's most definitely too soon to even think about names since we haven't even talked much less found out the baby's sex."

"Phooey! You're no fun. How long before you two come back for a visit?"

"Just let us survive this weekend and we can let you know."

"All right, we all miss you both. Hear that? It's your namesake missing you and wanting his bottle."

"Pinch those chubby cheeks for me."

"Call me if you want to talk or need something, Nat."

"You bet. Love you all."

"Love you both, no! Love you _all_ , too," Laura amended.

Natasha giggled as she put up her phone. Laura was so right. She'd been compounding and perpetuating the original mistake. Time to learn from it. She'd no sooner closed her eyes than her phone vibrated to signal a new text. Scott's ETA was in about 15 minutes. She'd give herself another few minutes and go meet him at the landing pad. She'd not heard that the spider had been found yet, so it looked like there would be one motley crew of agents, interns, Avengers, and ants involved in the search—oh, my!—before all was said and done. Damn, she missed Bruce.

 **End Notes:** Hope you enjoyed the chaos. I'm dying to talk about parts of this. I hope you caught the parallels and progress Nat has made, especially how much her approach to dealing with men has changed by the time she realizes she wants to pursue something with Bruce. We also get to see Bruce take some important steps forward as well.

Questions, comments, and conversation are always welcome!

Next week, back to the guys in Cincinnati where a rubber-chicken dinner and schmoozing awaits.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Good Behavior, Bad Ideas

 **Summary:** We don't get to the dinner yet, but we do spend time with the guys as Adam and Bruce try to figure out how they can coordinate with a little help from Tony and Clint.

The Cincinnatian Hotel wasn't the tallest building in downtown, but it did boast a great view of the Fountain Square. It also had the advantage of two completely renovated upper floors, which they had rented for almost a week to house their immediate group and a small army of mostly former S.H.I.E.L.D. field agents and technicians to make sure their visit to Cincinnati would run like it was a field operation. That required a lot of security personnel and support staff. Bruce thought he'd counted about twenty people on the top floor penthouse level as they walked through an open commons area, and Mal reported there were around twice that number on the floor below. Tony and Mal were huddled and working out some details in the central living room area, so Bruce thought it was a good idea just to stay out of everyone's way and figure out where his room was. Fortunately, Mal's niece Kayla gently touched his arm and tilted her head toward one of the hallways that branched off the main hub area where they were standing. "Let me show you to your rooms, Dr. Banner," she said with the same reassuring tones as her aunt, and guided him down the hall to the separate part of the master suite that her aunt had assigned him.

"I helped pick the quietest part for you, Dr. Banner," the young professional beamed. "I know that's really important to you, especially since you'll be spending so much time in Mr. Stark's proximity."

That did get a chuckle out of Bruce, "Thank you, Kayla. I really do appreciate your thoughtfulness."

"Jenks says the tech on this floor is secure, so you can communicate without having to worry," she said with a grin. Jenks and Kayla had been quietly dating the last time they'd all worked together in the summer and fall, and Kayla still seemed to be quite smitten with the petite blonde tech specialist, "The first thing she did was upgrade the fiber optics and Wi-Fi, so the Skype connection should be great."

"That sounds awesome," Bruce said, wondering if he was going to have an audience with a peanut gallery when he finally was able to communicate with Natasha since everyone seemed to know as much about it as he did. "Tell Jenks I really appreciate it if you see her before I do."

That got a blushing glow from Kayla, but she quickly continued on, "The floor below has a buffet set up that's come-and-go if you get hungry, or you can always order room service if you'd rather. Here we are," she said as she opened the door to what was basically a suite within the large contemporary penthouse suite. The creams, golds, and camel tans of the central part of the shared spaces added purple and turquoise to the color palate while the bamboo and light woods on the floor were replaced with thick carpets in chocolate brown and gold on cream with a Romanesque boarder design. Bruce thought Zen and eclectic might not naturally go together, but that was how he wanted to describe the clean sparse lines and minimal furniture, which transitioned into softer and rounder lines and overstuffed cushions and quilted fabrics in the actual bedroom section."

"Kind of an odd mix, right?" the petite assistant asked, knowing from past experience that Bruce always noticed patterns and design.

"Bit of a contrast, but the colors are nice. And you're right, it's a lot more quiet on this end," he noted.

"I've laid out your clothes for tonight in the other room and put up your things that weren't too personal. Just ping me if you can't find anything. You've got a good four hours before I have to make sure you're stuffed into your suit, so relax if you can, Doctor."

"I'll do my best. Thanks, Kayla."

"Oh-oh, I nearly forgot. Mr. Stark said you're getting time out of the bracelet for good behavior. May I please see your wrist?" she said as she pulled out a slim, rod-like pin, which functioned like a key for the court-ordered bracelet.

Bruce was a little surprised at this, but he took off his leather jacket and laid it over the back of the couch before unbuttoning and rolling up his sleeve. Kayla inserted the key, which popped the plastic hinge opened. "I'll just let Mr. Stark deal with this," she said as she dropped the monitor and key into a zip-lock plastic bag.

"Yea, freedom," he said rubbing his wrist.

"Now don't do anything too crazy," she said with a chuckle.

"Me?" Bruce said with an innocent shrug. Kayla shook her head and wagged a finger at him as she left. He waited until she was down the hall before he shut the suite doors and relaxed with his back against them for a moment.

"How'd I do?" Adam asked.

"Good as gold," Bruce affirmed as he pushed off from leaning against the door and walked through the rooms in the suite.

"This is so different from what I'm used to feeling and seeing," Adam mused.

"More input and details?" Bruce queried.

"Yes, but less of an overload," Adam noted. "Less irritating. It's still not perfect, but I'm feeling more in sync with you. It just takes a lot of effort. Before, everything was so at a distance, like looking through a fish tank."

"Through a glass eye darkly," Bruce paraphrased Mark Twain as he looked around the bedroom and its sitting area. "We'll get there, Bud," Bruce said aloud as he sat down on a padded bench at the end of the pillow-engulfed bed and started removing his shoes. He continued to strip down to the TechUWear suit and socks. He'd gotten accustomed enough to the paired garments now that the actual feel of it didn't bother him. He laid his regular clothes over a chair back and decided he better brush his teeth if he wanted to be in the same room as other people. Kayla had set the shave kit and toiletries bag out on the bathroom counter, so he soon had himself set up. Bruce had lived in places smaller than the bathroom, which had three ways to either shower or soak or cook one's self. "So, what did you think of the 'Greek fries'?" he asked aloud to Adam just to hear the acoustics.

"Well... they were pretty strong, weren't they?" he said diplomatically.

"Yah, that was the garlic sauce and the feta. I won't do that to you again. It's one of those things you eat because you can't have it but once in a great while and, in this case, it reminded me of being with my cousins."

"Not everything is like that though, right? I mean, so intense with flavors and memories all at once? I could tell you enjoyed the combination."

"No, but there are some things—they don't have to be strong flavors or smells—that have memories attached to them," Bruce explained. "By the way, get ready for the toothpaste. It's pretty strong, too."

"Ugh, fighting garlic with . . .?" Adam asked.

"Minty freshness," Bruce said as he gave his whole mouth a good scrub.

"This is just awful," Adam gagged out at the flavor clash.

"Yah, they're not supposed to go together. It's kind of a losing battle because the garlic just has to run its course." Bruce completed the necessary oral hygiene without more commentary. Adam seemed to be a lot like him when he was younger, at least as far as tolerating strong tastes went, but he'd be surprised if some differences between them didn't start to surface soon. "Could you taste things through me before?"

"I could some, but it was really muffled. I mostly just know how you feel about the way something tastes.

"Wow, I had no idea. I should have gone for the ice cream," Bruce thought with regret.

"It's okay," Adam responded quickly. "I want to taste everything eventually, so something that made you happy is a good start."

Bruce pulled a rolled washcloth from a basket full, washed his face, and then unpacked and arranged the few toiletries he needed on the counter. "What do you think of the TeckUWear?" he asked as he looked at the clothing in the mirror.

"It feels pretty comfortable by itself now that you have off that dress shirt with the scratchy tag."

"I promise, I will clip the tag out before I wear the shirt again," Bruce swore. The tag had irritated him, too.

"Does this clothing get big if I get big?" Adam asked.

"That's the idea. It's like the uniform pants Tony and I made, but this has a bunch of sensors built into it, too, so we're field-testing it. Not that you need to do a full, Hulk-size test."

"Will we get in trouble if I accidentally shred it?"

"No, not at all. Just the usual embarrassing consequences and a cheesed-off senator or three if it's in public."

"That still doesn't sound good," Adam worried.

"It's okay. Let's get stretched out. We'll both feel better." When Bruce had looked around the suite, the sunny corner with the sitting area in the bedroom had the most promising open floor space. He noted the view of the square below and then realized how unusually thick the glass was. He had to stop himself from habitually asking Friday about it, but he was pretty sure there were some privacy and security features involved in the laminated layers of glass and polymers he identified as he examined where the pane met the sill. Bruce smiled when he saw a couple of yoga mats rolled and stacked on a nearby cabinet's open shelves. He wasn't the first one to think it was a good spot to stretch.

"Tell me, Adam, is being together in my head like you thought it would be?" Bruce asked as he lay down on one of the mats and rested his back on the floor before bringing his knees up to his chest.

"Better. It's sort of like opening up a set of floodgates or maybe throwing opened all the windows and doors in a house. I'm still trying to figure out which ones to close or leave open, so I can stay focused."

"I have an idea," Bruce said aloud after he'd stretched out all the kinks he could. "Let's shut everything unnecessary out and open up one sense at a time to see what works for you."

"Okay. Let's give it a shot. I'm ready," Adam responded eagerly.

Bruce lay flat on his back again with his arms and legs stretched out and relaxed, closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing.

The next thing he sensed was a lot of childish snickering, and he opened his eyes to find himself sitting next to Adam on the over-pillowed couch in the hotel suit, watching himself spread-eagled on the mat.

"Look, you're asleep," giggled Adam.

"Uh, yah," said Bruce. "I think you're right. Sorry." Bruce stood up and walked over to study himself since he certainly didn't have a chance to do this every day. "Wow, I didn't realize I was this tired."

"You're really snoring, too!" Adam squeaked with amusement.

"Well, people will do that when they're tired, especially when they don't normally sleep on their backs like this. Give it a minute and I'll start drooling, and then you can really have a good laugh." This sent Adam into a fit of delighted cackles and Bruce rolled his eyes. "I knew you'd like that." Bruce squatted down on his haunches to study his face. His hair had darkened back up to more pepper than salt since the extreme stresses over the summer had mostly waned. He should have gotten a hair cut yesterday. How, could he be this tired—two pass-out-cold naps before "noonish." Bruce started to reach out to touch his arm, thinking he really ought to wake up.

"Don't do that unless you want to be pulled back inside," Adam warned, sobering up a bit. Bruce stopped.

"What would happen if you touched me?" he asked Adam.

"Good question. I don't know for sure." They both looked at each other from opposite sides of Bruce's prone figure as he continued to snore quietly. "I might be in control of your body, but I might make you transform, too," Adam speculated.

"How adventurous are you feeling?" Bruce asked, thinking about how much they still had to work out together and how potentially steep the learning curve might have to be if something unplanned happened and they had to transform.

"Oh, I'm probably not responsible enough to make that decision," Adam noted in a much less flippant tone than he'd just had.

"The reason I'm even entertaining this idea," Bruce explained, "is there's a reason Strange triggered this connection. He said we'd remember when we were ready . . ."

"Or when it was important," Adam finished the paraphrased. "You think we might have to work together as Hulk?"

"I don't know for certain, but we need to find out what it's like. We can't afford to get caught unprepared and have to learn to coordinate on the fly," Bruce reasoned.

"But I'm thinking this would not be a good place to Hulk out," Adam objected.

"Do we have a better option? I don't think that's what will happen, at least not without having some control," Bruce theorized. "We're both calm. We've done this together before. We can talk each other through it. We're not going to get an ideal situation and our widow for practicing is shrinking by the minute."

"The last time something like this happened, I took down a drone and we got into a disagreement about you not respecting my space . . ."

"That wasn't the last time and it wasn't the first time either. We've managed this in the lab and in the field when we could barely communicate and hardly trusted each other. Now that we're in sync, it has to go smoother. Not to put on the pressure, but we need to find out how this works," Bruce concluded.

"Tony has been a really bad influence on you," Adam said with a sigh. "Promise me, if we do start to Hulk out, let me take the lead. I know you see me as inexperienced, but being the Hulk is what I know. That's what _my_ degree is in. Trust me."

"I trust you," Bruce said with a confident smile. He reached across and ruffled Adam's hair.

Adam grinned at Bruce and took his hand in his left hand, "Ready?"

"As we'll ever be."

Adam reached down and touched the shoulder of Bruce's prone body. Bruce had expected the pull to be fast and unpleasant, but instead, time seemed stretched and they both slipped back into his body with very little discomfort. Adam felt the trigger begin first and wrapped himself protectively around Bruce's consciousness. Bruce almost panicked as he realized he'd guessed wrong, but Adam reassured him, "I have this." The pain of the transformation started to rip and tear at muscle and bone, but Bruce willed it to slow down while Adam took control. Bruce manipulated the heat of the gamma as it poured out of his bones, and he spread it as evenly as he could throughout his body. He could feel his body gasp and curl into a fetal position. Adam's control wavered as their cells began to expand and the mass poured into him as the cells accepted the changes. He struggled to his knees and his spine arched in spasms as his frame expanded and the muscles swelled out of proportion.

"Don't fight it," Bruce said. "It's your turn to claim it."

"Mine!" Adam said through gritted teeth as the final surge played itself out and completed the transformation. When Adam opened his eyes, he stared at his hands as he flexed them: huge and green and dangerously strong. Then the difference dawned on him, the pain that usually warped his perceptions and dulled his thinking was blocked now. The anger that normally came from it to envelop him so that his mind burned wasn't there to drive his actions and remove his reason. "Bruce?" he asked aloud in Hulk's rumbling bass.

"I'm here," Bruce answered from someplace close inside.

"We did it. Now, what do you want to do?" Adam asked.

"I would say to grab my wallet, and let's go out for ice cream, but I think someone would notice before we hit the lobby."

Adam gave a rumbling chuckle before he realized making loud sounds that could be mistaken for something sinister from just down the hall probably wasn't such a good idea. "I think I killed your high tech clothes," he mused as he looked at some gaps in the lighter fabric in the upper shirt portion.

"That's not your fault, but Tony probably got a message about the transformation or a notice when the clothes went offline. I imagine he'll be here any moment. Hiding in the bathroom probably isn't going to work."

"Hey, that was my Plan A," Adam complained.

"We'd still have to explain the clothes. The suite door isn't locked, so we can just wait for him. Do you want to try and change back?"

"I don't think I can yet," said Adam, starting to feel a little concerned. "Normally, it's just me handing it off to you as I calm down, but there's no place to come down from, nothing to hand off.

They both heard Bruce's phone ring in the bathroom with Tony's "Highway to Hell" ringtone. Adam sighed, "There's no way for me to even hold your phone without destroying it."

"And it won't recognize your voice as mine either," Bruce added. _Future project: Hulk-friendly phone and pad._ "We're just going to have to trust Tony not to come in here with palms blasting."

"Should I lay face down and put my hands behind my head or something?" Adam asked.

"No. Just sit and hold tight. Tony's not a cop. Can you take a lotus position?"

"Pretty close," Adam said shifting from his knees to sit cross-legged. He wasn't sure how effectively he could look innocent and harmless in this form, but he closed his eyes and tried. "I'm just a big, green, Zen Pooh Bear not doing anything destructive."

"That's probably the right attitude," Bruce acknowledged with an amused smile. "Just remember, he's going to call you Bruce no matter what. Don't take it personally. That's just Tony."

"I know," Adam snorted.

"Do you want me to take over?" Bruce offered.

"No, thank you, but I need to do this. I've never been in the position to think or speak for myself as Hulk. I need to step up."

"Okay, it's all yours. I'm right here." It was going to be hard, but Bruce was resolved to let Adam take the lead and learn. How did parents stand this?

They didn't have long to wait because there was a firm knock at the suite's double doors. "Bruce, I know you didn't like that fancy new underwear, but you didn't have to kill it."

"I'm sorry, Tony," Adam said as clearly and unthreateningly as he could, but there was no way to disguise that deep rumble.

"May I come in?" Tony asked, still keeping the conversation light, but probably having a WTF-moment as he reassessed the situation.

"The door isn't locked," Adam confirmed. "I'm having some trouble changing back."

"Well, that doesn't sound good," Tony said, pushing the double doors open and entering the suite.

"I'm in the bedroom," Adam said, making an effort to not fidget and trying to appear relaxed.

"You're doing fine," Bruce assured Adam.

Tony must not have felt too threatened because he walked into the room without a lot of swagger and assessed the situation. "So you're stuck in green mode?" he asked in an unusually kind, quiet voice.

"Yah," Adam glanced at him guiltily before staring down at his own hands resting in his lap. "Sorry."

Tony snorted, "I don't see anything broken, there's nothing on fire, the military isn't in the streets. I don't think you need to be sorry unless there's something you aren't telling me about this," he said gesturing to Hulk's physical form. Adam squirmed. He had few skills when it came to deception.

"It's okay," Bruce told him. "He's already figured out most of this. We can trust him."

"What do you want to know?" Adam asked Tony.

"Let's start with the upgrade in vocabulary. You sound like Bruce, but I'm sure you're not, at least not entirely."

"I'm still Hulk, not Bruce, but he's here," Adam replied.

Tony paced back and forth in front of Adam with his arms folded across his chest. He finally stopped and squared up to face Hulk, "So, you've been here all along, but now you can talk?"

"Right. As Hulk, that is."

"But, you're not always Hulk?"

"No. I'm only Hulk when there is a Hulk."

"Okay, who are you then?"

 _Oh, here was where the shit might hit the fan._ "Bruce calls me Adam. I don't know how to explain my existence with any certainty beyond that, but talk to Bruce when he's back and he can catch you up on his theories."

Tony covered his jaw with a hand to hide a smile. "You sound like Vision now," Tony said, narrowing his eyes a bit.

Adam shrugged, "That name's taken. I'll stick with Hulk." Then he realized how flippant that sounded. "Sorry, my point is, Bruce had something happen earlier today."

"It was that text, wasn't it? The one that came in when we were up by the university," Tony guessed.

"Yes, that was the trigger. Has Bruce told you about our meeting with Stephen Strange when we went into hiding after Sokovia?"

"Yes, what he could make sense of anyway, which wasn't exactly straightforward or clear, but considering how cryptic the source tends to be . . ." Tony trailed off in thought.

"That marked the point when Bruce and I made a concerted effort to call a truce and communicate. That's why we're working with the therapy team."

"Uh, yah, I've seen the videos," Tony said a bit uneasily.

"I can understand if it makes you uncomfortable, but you're still welcome to come if you change your mind. As I was saying, we've worked at this, but Strange said we'd understand when we were ready or when there was a need. When Bruce read the text it triggered the last barrier between us to drop. We were trying to figure out how our connection works since we might have to use it. Without the pain and the rage, I can think and communicate, but we're having trouble changing back now."

Tony had been quiet for several minutes trying to take in what this being, this strange yet familiar person, was saying and adjust his long-held beliefs accordingly. He was on almost the same eye level with "Adam," and he'd studied his eyes for several minutes now. He didn't see Bruce, the brown tones and the sadness weren't there, but neither was the glowing green that immediately signaled the building rage and subsequent storm of anger or the red-tinged insanity of Johannesburg. These eyes were a deeper green and as intelligent as Bruce's, yet not so sad or world-weary. Earnest: that was the right word. Tony stepped a little closer, almost into Adam's space. "You're the one who caught me when I fell back through the portal after the Battle of New York, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Adam, "I did."

"Why?"

"Because you'd been kind to Bruce, and you'd treated him like a human being. We don't make friends every day. I didn't know you then, but I understood your actions. I couldn't let you die, Tony, not when I could do something."

Tony sat down on the bench at the end of the bed and ran his hands down his face. "Never a dull moment. Should I call you Adam now?" he asked the green giant sitting there patiently with the sun from the window puddling around him.

"It's up to you, but when it's not just the three of us, you'd better stick to Hulk or people will get confused," Adam reasoned.

"Okay, that makes sense. Now, what can we do to get you to transition back? We know Natasha uses the lullaby to calm you down and then Bruce is back. We probably shouldn't try making you mad though."

"No, that would be bad."

"Would sad work? I could show you a tearjerker movie like _The Notebook_ or maybe _Ol' Yeller_.

"Save that as a last resort. I don't want Bruce coming out of this really depressed."

"Well, should we try 'happy' instead? You already have the best reason in the world to be happy right now."

"True, but that's not doing anything to make me change back yet."

Just then, there was a knock at the suite doors, which Tony had left open. "Stark? Doc? Mal says you're both still holed up in here."

"Yah, we're in the boudoir, Barton. Come join the party," Tony joked. He grinned at Adam and gave him a wink. It was clear Tony thought this was going to be fun.

Adam's eyes got big with a bit of momentary panic. He definitely did not think adding someone else into the mix would be fun, especially with that look on Tony's face.

Clint walked in while scanning his phone screen. "Hey, have either of you heard anything from Nat? She's got Scott flying in with . . . Uh, hi, Big Guy. Have either of you heard from her?" Clint hardly missed a beat.

"Not for a couple of hours," Tony said playing it straight.

Adam looked at both of them and shook his head since he didn't have an answer. He knew and liked Clint, having spent time on the farm and during missions together, but sitting there staring at each other like Clint was now, made Adam uncomfortable.

Clint cracked up first. "Shit, what are you two up to?" he asked. He'd actually spent more time with Hulk than Tony had, but it was weird seeing the Big Guy just sitting there on a couple of yoga mats.

"Well, we thought it would be fun to go to the opening dinner like this. Right now we're waiting for the tailor to get here with the suit, so the Big Guy can try it on," Tony deadpanned.

Clint looked at Tony who was still managing to keep a straight face and then looked at Adam who was about ready to start squirming. "Unlike Stark," Clint said, zeroing his attention in on Adam, "I know you don't lie. What kind of suit?"

Adam raised his eyebrows and looked over at Tony then blurted out the first thing that came to mind: "A Burberry double-breasted in blue pinstripes." Adam rattled the description off quickly and clearly in his bass voice. Clint's mouth dropped open and he looked back and forth again. "The tie is vintage," Adam added and then he started grinning. Okay, so trolling was kind of fun.

Tony finally cracked up and rolled back on the bed laughing, "Oh, he got you good, Barton."

"I am so going to tell Nat you did that," Clint tried to say as sternly as possible, but he was laughing, too. "Just imagine trying to find a pair of dress shoes for your feet, Dude."

Adam finally felt comfortable enough to join in and his laughter rumbled throughout the suite. It felt good to laugh like he did with Bruce in his head. Then he realized he had their answer. "Bruce," he thought, "take my hand."

"All right," Bruce said, grasping Adam's hand in his mind's eye. "Tell me what to . . ." Bruce felt himself being pulled forward, so he followed the pull and slid back into the reality of his body as he fell forward onto the dark carpet of the bedroom floor. The sunny carpeting felt a lot better than the frozen ground or mud he normally seemed to find for a transition spot. He gave a groan as his body contracted and the green ebbed from his limbs back to his torso and disappeared into his veins.

Tony waited until Bruce lay there still and exhausted on the carpeted floor. "Are you okay, Bruce?"

"Yah, I'm fine. Clint, what did you say about Nat?" he asked as he rolled over onto his back again and tried to finish unclenching his muscles one more time.

"You heard that?" the archer asked.

"I just caught her name."

"Speak of the devil," Clint reached in his jacket pocket and pulled his phone back out. "Okay, I just got a text from Laura. She says she was on the phone with Nat. What's this about a spider brooch?"

"Long story," said Bruce. "Tony can fill you in better than I can. Thanks for being here, by the way. It means a lot to me that you came."

Clint reached down and gave Bruce a hand up off the floor. "No problem, Doc."

Bruce stretched with his arms above his head. "Crap, I really did kill the shirt," he said and pulled it off.

"Let me see that," Clint said, and he looked at the odd organic material, which had an almost tiger-striped patter of separations along the shoulders and upper back. "This is that new tech stuff you two were working on with the contractor, right?"

"Yah, that piece didn't pass its first field test. I'll bag it and send it back to TechUWear, so they can run their analysis on why it failed," Bruce concluded.

"Well, that's easy. You get fucking big too fast for it to adjust. Are those the pants?" Clint asked.

"Yah, they're offline but at least they stayed intact," Bruce noted the garment had returned to its original black from dark purple. "The fibers are heavier weight and it looks like they adjusted quicker."

"That and your chest and shoulders are way bigger than your ass," Clint noted.

"This is true," Tony said with mock sobriety.

"Thanks, it's really nice that both of you noticed," Bruce said with a snicker. He searched through the bureau drawers until he found the other TechUWear components Kayla had unpacked for him. This time he picked out a sleeveless tank and slipped it over his head. "Hey, if you want to see something cool watch this." As soon as their edges met, the two garments intermeshed and the pants quickly shifted to dark purple as they came back on line. Bruce and Tony's phones chimed simultaneously.

"Ah, isn't that cute," laughed Clint. "But seriously, what did these just do? Form a complete circuit and come online?"

"As far as hardware goes, yes, that's true," said Tony, "but the software is even more fun." He showed Clint a few of the screens of the data, which was now updating.

"Could this be used for biofeedback? I've been working at controlling my heart rate."

"I don't see why not," Tony replied.

"Cool, once you get this beta test over with, sign me up," the archer said with a nod. "I need to improve my recovery time if I'm going get back to serious biathlon training.

"Somehow you make that sound kind of sexy and dirty for an Olympic sport."

"That is just in your mind, Stark. Now, what is this spider brooch crap? Laura's text said Scott is helping out back at the tower because something is missing."

"Well, that would be the brooch, which apparently wasn't a brooch, which is now loose in the tower. Scott and his little friends are going to help find it before it dumps any more data to the presumed bad guys. Nick, Nat, and Pepper are all there, so it's being handled, and we're not supposed to know about any of this."

Clint gave a good belly laugh, "Shit, I'm picturing that crew tearing the tower apart, and now I'm really glad I made the road trip with you because I know who was next on the list to recruit for that bug hunt."

"That's right. All the tech and none of the insects: Go, Team Cincinnati," Bruce said drily. He was a little miffed at being left out of the loop concerning what was going on at the tower, but he understood why Natasha was doing it.

"Okay, Banner, get some clothes on, and we'll all go find something to drink before we get stuffed into our suits," Tony said. "I hear we should go get ice cream across the square."

(Of course Adam voted for that!)

 **End Notes:** Many thanks to the wonderful Autumn_Froste for the beta reading!

Sorry for not getting as far as planned, but the guys needed some together time.

I still live for the comments, so please let me know what you think!

Still planning to get to the darn rubber-chicken dinner next week if we can get Adam out of the ice cream shop. Props if you know the local Cincy specialty!


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Ice Cream and Understanding

 **Summary:** An archer, an engineer, and a physicist walk into an ice cream parlor . . .

"Slow down a bit if you want me to keep up with you, Adam," Bruce thought in as firm and calm of a voice as he could project. He was walking across the street with Tony and Clint, so they could cross the plaza and reach Graeter's Ice Cream Parlor on the far side of Fountain Square. There was at least one visible bodyguard following them, but Bruce was betting there were at least a half dozen more on the ground level and a couple taking the high ground on the rooftops. Since they left the suite, Adam had kept up an almost nonstop barrage of questions, which had started with ice cream flavors and soon veered off into elevator engineering, baseball, and visiting the Bartons again. Bruce was trying to keep up, "Adam, I don't know enough about historic elevators to answer that first question. The Reds used to be called the 'Red Legs' because of their uniforms; it has nothing to do with communism or the Soviet Union. The new stadium is down on the riverfront, and we'll see it tomorrow. I'm sure it won't be that long till we see all the Bartons again. Yes, Nate is probably walking by now, but I'll ask Clint when we get a chance. Okay, Adam, may I have a break now? We're almost there, and I'm going to need to talk."

"I'm sorry, Bruce. There's just so much here to take in and understand."

"Believe me, I know. You're so much like, well, like me. I get it. Let's just take it one step, one question at a time."

"I can do that."

"Good, just focus and let me know what you want to try." As they entered the brightly lit store, Bruce was glad to see they'd managed to hit a lull in customers. The three employees behind the counter wasted no time before plying them with ice cream samples using small plastic spoons. Adam was perfectly quiet as Bruce read down the menu: "Black Cherry Chocolate Chip, Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip, Buckeye Blitz, Butter Pecan, Original Salted Caramel, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, . . . Are you getting these?" Bruce finally asked.

"If you just focus your eyes, I can read them with you," Adam replied.

"No kidding?" Bruce was a little surprised at that. "I knew you could read in my head, but you've been so far behind when you manifest that I was a little worried."

"Overloads block most of my cognitive functions so everything is impaired or compromised. Now without any overloads, it seems I'm not blocked from doing complex functions like reading and math. I don't think I'm close to as proficient as you, but I can read the boards here and add up the numbers."

"Wow, you've been able to keep up with me when we've formulated theorems before, so maybe that's still possible. We're going to have to study this in detail later. Okay, right now it's back to reality. Where do you want to start? Vanilla is sort of the default flavor."

"What's Madagascar Vanilla?"

"That's where the vanilla beans are from." Bruce asked to try the Madagascar Vanilla and took his time tasting the unusually dense ice cream for which the company was famous. He was a bit surprised at how the taste, smell, and feel of it evoked a rich montage of childhood memories. "That's really good for plain vanilla, Adam. What do you think?"

"It's good, but I want to try the Mint Chip. It's whiter."

"Why does 'whiter' matter?"

"I want to work up to the purple and dark brown ones."

"Okay, but you might want to limit yourself to six so _I_ don't get overloaded. I can probably eat quite a bit, but we do have to go to this dinner and eat more actual food later." Bruce asked to try the Mint Chip. "Are you sure you want to try this, Bud? You didn't like the toothpaste earlier and it was mint."

Adam laughed at that. "I'm ready, Bruce. Shovel it in."

Bruce fought to keep his face straight and popped the whole spoonful into his mouth. The mint was pretty brisk, but he'd forgotten how good the large flakes of slightly bitter dark chocolate were. Unfortunately, Adam picked an odd moment to develop control over Bruce's gag reflex. Bruce winced and fought hard to swallow. He retreated to the water fountain at the back of the store before things got really embarrassing. Tony and Clint were too engrossed in picking flavors to pay much attention to his coughing fit.

"Sorry, I wasn't expecting the mint and that strong of a chocolate on top of it," Adam apologized.

"Well, we better skip the ones with chips then unless they're milk chocolate. That's milder. The Strawberry Milk Chocolate Chip is good. They've had that since I was first here as a kid."

"How about the Coffee without the chips?"

"You know coffee is a little bitter."

"It's one of the few things I think I know what it tastes like though since you drink it all the time."

Bruce asked to taste the plain Coffee. "Well?"

"No."

Bruce did not comment, but the _I-told-you-so_ vibe hung in the air. "My turn," Bruce thought and asked for a sample of the Original Salted Caramel, which may have been the original, but he didn't remember it from his childhood. As he chased the pale ice cream around the inside of his mouth with his tongue, he had an unexpected flood of memories that involved Natasha and a shiver of pleasure ran up his spine that seemed out of place here in public. Something was definitely up with these associations. "Wow, that was almost as good as sex," he blurted out to his own surprise.

"You know," said the older male employee behind the counter who'd handed him the sample, "we get comments like that a lot with this flavor."

Tony snorted out a laugh and so did Clint. "Damn, let's try that next, Barton. I want to have what Banner is having," Tony said, not even trying to keep a straight face. He stuck the sample in his mouth and made some exaggerated pleasurable "nom-nom-nom" sounds before he removed the spoon, "Sorry, just not doing it for me, Bruce, but it is good stuff."

"It's excellent, but not exactly orgasmic," Clint said with a giggle.

"I think it's the salt," suggested the guy behind the counter.

Tony and Clint had made up their minds, so they moved down the counter to order. "I knew you'd pick the Bourbon Pecan Chip, Stark," Clint said. "That one just had you written all over it."

"You think? I'm going to have to send some of this back home before we leave town."

"The sign says they do ship," Clint said, pointing to a display beside a large freezer along part of the interior walls. Clint had settled on the store's signature Black Raspberry Chip, joking that the colors matched his uniform well enough to blend in if any ended up on it rather than in him. Once they got their orders, they sat down at a corner table to enjoy their ice cream and wait for Bruce to get done.

Right about then Bruce was looking down into the freezer with the open containers, and Adam spotted a pale blue variety of ice cream. Bruce signed heavily. Among all the natural flavors and colors, that one stood out even if it wasn't chemically bright and obnoxious.

"I would like to try the blue one . . . pleeeease!" pleaded Adam.

"Oh, you would want to do the Cotton Candy," Bruce groaned inwardly. He went ahead, sensing with a kind of confectionary fatalism that he was doomed to eat more than just this one sample. The baby blue stuff had never been his favorite, but his cousin Jennifer had always picked it. The one good thing Bruce remembered was it didn't turn his tongue blue. Much to his current chagrin, Adam almost purred with contentment at the taste, and Bruce had a flash of memories from riding the Junior Scrambler with his cousins at the nearby Coney Island Amusement Park on a summer evening. They were all between seven and ten years old with skinned knees and sunburnt noses. He'd wished that day would never end.

Bruce shook himself back to the present. He had thought he was going to use his next pick on Bananas Foster, but he chose Dutch Milk Chocolate instead. It was mild and comforting, and Adam liked it, so that made it worthwhile.

"Okay, Big Guy, it's decision time. Got your mind made up? Give me two that you like, and I'll pick the third."

"Could we do a Banana Split? That has three ice cream flavors and a bunch of other stuff," Adam negotiated. Bruce was vaguely aware he'd helped create this monster.

"Okay, we might as well," Bruce thought with another mental sigh and placed the order.

Tony and Clint were still seated at the table enjoying the last of their ice cream while puzzling over Bruce's behavior. He'd been making a variety of faces and seemed to be having a difficult time deciding.

"What's up with Bruce?" Clint asked under his breath to Tony.

"I'm not completely sure, but maybe he's feeling some nostalgic vibe or rehashing something from his childhood?" Tony speculated. He was used to seeing Bruce completely absorbed in his thought processes, but that was always in the lab. In public, he was usually much better at covering up that particular AS quirk.

Now that the order was in, Bruce relaxed a bit. He leaned against the counter and grinned at his colleagues. Normally, he'd have been happy with a single scoop, but having Hulked-out earlier, he could afford the calories. If it made Adam's day, he wasn't going to complain. When he brought over his Banana Split, there was so much whipped cream and other toppings that he couldn't say if there were bananas in it or not. "I hope you two still have your spoons," Bruce said as he carefully set the loaded tureen down on the table.

"Wow," said Tony, "that is impressive, and it's going to be even more impressive watching you eat it."

Clint grinned, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're the one who's pregnant and not Nat." As soon as the statement was out of his mouth, Clint cringed. "I am so sorry! I did not mean to say that out loud. Shit! Nat is going to kill me."

"It's okay," said Bruce laughing ruefully. "We kind of had it figured it out, so you might as well confirm it."

"I'm still sorry though," Clint continued, running his hands down his face and covering his mouth a bit too late. "She was really looking forward to telling you."

"So spill it, Barton," said Tony leaning forward across the small table. "I bet Nat or Laura sent you the goods. We want pictures or whatever you've got."

Clint looked at Bruce, "I have stills and a video of the sonogram if you want to see them."

Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose and forehead in thought. "Just tell me if the baby looks healthy, that's all I really want to know right this minute."

"Laura and the obstetrician both said everything looks perfect so far," Clint reported as he pulled out his phone and scrolled to the right screen before handing it over to Tony who seemed to have no qualms about looking at everything.

"That's good," said Bruce smiling to himself. "I'd kind of been holding my breath about that."

"'Rushman'?" Tony said as he looked at the label on the sonogram stills. "Now that name brings back some memories. I guess she wanted to stay off the radar a bit?"

"She probably thought that the alias was safer," Clint reasoned.

"Well, maybe after this evening she'll have a reason to use a different one," Tony sniffed.

"Hey, it's a promise ring, not an engagement ring, so don't jinx it," Bruce said between bites. "Get your spoon over here and help me out."

"Is that like ice cream on the ice cream?" Clint asked.

"It's the whipped cream," Bruce explained. "Somewhere under here are bananas, but I've not found one yet."

Tony got quiet as he played the video from the sonogram over several times. He could barely tell one thing from another in the shadowy images, but he recognized there was a little being there who was tenacious of life. He passed Clint back his phone because otherwise he was going to get all sloppy and embarrassing. "Okay, what's the blue stuff?" asked Tony, pointing to Bruce's dish.

"That is my cousin Jennifer's all time favorite. Try it and see what you think."

Both Clint and Tony tried it. Clint grinned, "I know what it is."

Tony looked puzzled, "No innocent fruit was harmed in the making of this. It's not bubble gum, but it's candy-ish."

Clint looked at Bruce with his eyebrows raised. "Do you think he's ever had the real thing?"

"Surely they have fairs and carnivals and circuses in California," teased Bruce, "but maybe he's used to the pink stuff?"

"Sugar floss?" asked Tony.

"Right, cotton candy," corrected Clint.

"That's what Aunt Peggy called it, and Dir. Carter is always right," Tony said as if that settled everything. "So if it's Jenn who likes this blue stuff, why did you pick it?" Tony asked Bruce.

"I didn't. Ad... uh, Hulk picked it out," Bruce said matter-of-factly. "I picked the orgasmic Salted Caramel, and we compromised on the Dutch Milk Chocolate. That's it under the marshmallow topping," He said pointing it out. "I wasn't kidding. Help me eat this before the Hot Fudge melts everything."

"Hold it," said Clint, "when did this start? Nat usually has more communication with the Big Guy than you do." He took a big spoonful of the chocolate and continued to study Bruce.

"It's recent," Bruce said. "We're still working things out."

"You know, I thought something was a little different. I've not seen you flash any green at all this afternoon," observed Clint.

"Come to think of it, I've not seen any green since the doctor's office this morning," said Tony. "Pardon me," he said as he reached over and touched the back of his hand to Bruce's forehead.

"Hey," said Bruce flinching away, "I thought you had an app for that now."

"You're right!" Tony said pulling out his phone.

"So, what did you think of the Black Raspberry Chip?" Bruce asked Clint.

"If I had to stick with one, I'd still pick it, but this chocolate is amazing stuff."

"The seasonal flavors are just as good." Bruce looked over at Tony who was still flipping through screens. "Well, did you find something or not, Tony?"

Tony held up a finger to signal for Bruce to wait a moment, "Here, take a look at this," he said handing the phone to Bruce. The physicist found himself looking at a simple graph that showed his body temperature had dropped two degrees since they had been in Clifton that morning. It had been elevated while he was the Big Guy, but it had come back down again. That still left him running warmer than average, but not at such an extreme as he had been since the episode when he collapsed back in August. This also left him with yet more questions than answers when it came to explaining where the missing energy went much less how this connected to the trigger from Dr. Strange and his closer connection to Adam. Bruce handed the phone back to Tony. "That confirms the drop in temperature, but I couldn't find anything earlier when I looked through the software that would indicate or measure my Liminal shifts."

"If there is, I've not been able to find it either and I looked for it specifically," Tony shook his head. "That may not be a bad thing in the long run."

"Looks like you're stuck eyeballing it like the rest of us, guys," Clint said with a shrug.

Bruce shook his head in agreement with the archer. "Right now I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The Big Guy is cooperative and my control is otherwise in good shape," he said as he prodded the mostly liquid mixture left in the bottom of the dish. "If we can get through the rest of the trip without me changing color and scaring the academics, I would consider this a success, no matter how the rest of the conference goes over."

Tony ran his spoon along the bottom of the dish and fished out the last chunk of fudge-covered banana. "If I were you, I'd be more concerned about fitting into that monkey suit this evening after eating all this ice cream than showing a little green."

"Well, let's go walk a little of it off before we have to go get cleaned up then," said Bruce as he pushed himself back from the table.

"By God, it's a plan," said Clint. "Get me out of here before I eat anymore of this even if I don't have to fit in a monkey suit."

They took a several block stroll in the mild afternoon weather before heading back to the hotel. Adam had been extremely quiet and simply responded with a mumbled, "Nap . . . ," when Bruce mentally prodded him. Bruce wondered if this was going to be the pattern—intense interactions followed by crashes. He reasoned things would even out over time, but so far he had no complaints. With time on his hands, once they arrived back, Bruce unpacked what little Kayla and left for him to do then arranged his lineup of suits and other clothing along with his shoes. After that he got his electronics out and made sure the pad and the laptop were charged up and connected. He even went through part of his presentation. It only took him about five minutes to make sure he'd scraped off his afternoon shadow, so he took a completely unnecessary shower where he finally broke down and started sobbing with relief. _She was going to be okay. They both were going to be okay._ He let himself have a hundred counts of really ugly tears and rough breathing with the water running at full force down his back as he pressed his forehead to the tiled wall. Logically, he knew Natasha and the baby were going to be fine. They'd made it through the roughest part of the first trimester. It was all going to be okay. After that he straightened up, turned off the water, and was ready to move on.

Joseph picked Tony and Bruce up in front of the hotel and drove them back up the hill to the university where the conference's opening activities were scheduled in the University Ballroom. Mal had gone over the itinerary and locations with them earlier, and this was simply a meet-and-greet cocktail hour with a not-so-formal dinner afterward. They were arriving about halfway through the cocktails to cut back on the exposure time. There would be a dozen security people already there and in place, so all they had to do was show up and do some schmoosing without starting any fights. That sounded easy, but things were never that clear cut once they got rolling.

"All right, Cinderellas," Joseph said as he pulled the Hummer up at the drop-off point nearest the University Center where the evening's events were housed, "I will be right here waiting for you at 7:15pm, so don't be late."

"No problem," Tony said.

"Thanks, we'll see you then, Joseph," Bruce said, and they headed off down a walk in the cooling twilight to the brightly lit building that had to be their destination. Bruce felt a bit over dressed, despite having won the suit vs. tux argument with Mal. There were several other academic types headed in the same direction, and Bruce caught a few barely audible exclamations of recognition as they neared the building. Tony was accustomed to being spotted and even approached, but Bruce much preferred being completely in the background where he didn't have to worry about interactions or confrontations.

As they approached the front of the building, a couple arrived at the same time from another angle, and Bruce held the door open for them.

"I don't believe it," said a warm female voice that made Bruce's head snap to attention.

"Betty?" he asked.

"Bruce, it is so good to see you," she said stepping forward to take his hand. "It's been a long time."

 **Notes:** My deepest thanks to Autumn_Froste for her beta skills and keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Yah, I'm a terrible person for cutting it off right there. (Btw, the last mention of Betty is back in Ch. 30 if you want any hints at where the relationship stands and whom she's with now.) I'm hoping I will be able to post on time next week because grades will be due-not because I'm a horrible tease. I'm also working on a piece for HulkWidow Week on Tumblr, so keep your fingers crossed.

Hope you enjoyed the three guys together. Clint is a fun character to throw into the mix because these three have several common background elements that don't get any time spent on them in the movies. He's basically like a brother in law to Bruce and Bruce admires him a great deal.

I could go on, but what do you think? Please let me know. I do live for your comments and love the conversations.

Graeter's is all this and then some. Check them out if you make it to this part of the world or can find them in a store: www. graeters. com


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37: Sleeping with Strangers

 **Summary:** This is not the the Betty chapter I had planned. It's my Brucenat Week piece that is essentially a flashback to Sept. 15th of last year. It stands by itself and also fits right in with the rest of this sprawling story. Essentially, it's the Liminal Grande episode Natasha describes as being her fault because she has a nightmare way back in Chapter 5, "Liminal". There's a lot more than that, but you get the idea.

 **Notes:** Sorry, this really isn't the Betty chapter you were looking for because I have too many things coming due and having to be done all at once, so what's here is at least a double-size chapter with lots of feels and interesting things going on. It would not have gotten done if not for Autumn_Froste who made some really great suggestions and pulled parts of this back out of the weeds for me. Many, many thanks as always!

I have to get grades in this week, but I'm hoping to get back to the story as planned next week. I'm not going to say I promise because it's jinxing things.

((0))

Bruce knew as soon as Natasha stepped off the Quinjet that this had been a rough mission. When his texts hadn't been returned except with a terse arrival time, he'd suspected she and Barton and their team either had their hands full or worse. As she wordlessly stalked past him with barely a glance to acknowledge his presence, Bruce noted she didn't appear to have been injured, at least physically, but he hardly had a chance to assess her before she was past him and disappearing down the hall. Clint had followed her out of the jet at a safe distance, and he beckoned for Bruce to holdup a moment rather than immediately follow Natasha down the hall.

"Hey, Doc, we ran into a sleeper cell no one was counting on. She's convinced she was chasing a ghost, the one who's tried to take her title at least twice."

"Yelena Belova?" Bruce interrupted, "That can't be. She was vaporized from the inside out. There wasn't enough of her left to even get a good DNA sample."

"I know. I've seen the tapes. Anyway, things got messy before we could even infiltrated the place and there were kids and old people involved. All we could do was deal with the aftermath, and she's pretty pissed off. This kind of thing really rattles her cage," Clint tried to explain."

"Oh, boy," Bruce sighed. "This may not to be a fun evening."

"Sorry, man," said Clint, shaking his head. "If I didn't have commitments elsewhere, I'd offer to go a few rounds with her in the gym. You know how she operates; just give her some space and wait till she's ready to talk."

"Right," Bruce replied. "I guess having a rival try to steal your name makes it personal."

"With Nat, when she loses, which isn't often," Clint held up four fingers to indicate the number of "loses", "it's always personal."

Bruce nodded. "So what happened? Can you tell me anything?"

Clint ran a hand through his short spiky hair and blew out a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks. "Oh, fuck it! You deserve to know. Bruce, she likes to take the lead, especially when there are any rookies involved. This was supposed to be recon for her and three other agents—two of them were green and needed field experience. All the recon team had to do was go in and act like tourists in a shopping area, spot the Hydra dupes, and come out clean so the tactical team with the muscle could do their thing. Her team did the first part—spotted two squids in a restaurant—and then Nat sighted her ghost. She sent the others to report back and bring in the tactical squad while she followed the woman out the rear door with no backup on the ground. Unfortunately, the squids spotted Belova too and half the kitchen tried to follow her out the back door, effectively blocking Nat. By the time she fought free of them, the ghost was gone, some idiot had panicked and set the building on fire, and the only squids left were the calamari in the melted down freezer. We got everyone out of the upper floors, but there were kids and old people from the six families living there sent to the hospital with injuries and nothing left to come home to."

"God, another fire and kids. That's a horrible combination, especially for her," Bruce said shaking his head. "Did she get hurt?"

"She mostly got a good workout, but I wasn't there to see what all happened, but you can see why she's not happy. We also got a good dressing down, despite minimizing the damage. It kind of rubbed salt in the wound." He shook his head, "I'm sorry, Bruce, but I need to get moving."

"I appreciate the heads-up. Give my best to Laura and the kids." Bruce reached out and shook Clint's hand and the archer pulled him in and gave him a side hug and a pat on the shoulder as well. "Thanks for getting her home safe, Clint."

"My pleasure, man. You two will be fine. Make her take some time off."

Bruce nodded, "I just might," and shouldered Natasha's abandoned duffle that Clint handed him and waved his thanks to the archer as the hatch closed. Bruce was halfway back to their apartment by the time the Quinjet was airborne. To his chagrin, Natasha wasn't there, but he knew where to find her without even asking Friday to track her down. He dropped the duffle in the laundry room and paused long enough to note the smoke and dried blood smell coming off it. He'd have to make sure it wasn't hers. He ducked in the bedroom to take off his usual lab-type dress clothing and throw on his athletic gear before heading down to the larger gym.

He heard her long before he saw her striking and kicking away at one of Steve's punching bags that was probably as heavy as she was. She'd tied her hair back and stripped down to a sports bra and tank top with compression shorts. Her uniform and her boots were tossed aside on one of the benches with the hand-wrap tape. He watched her land a flurry of whirling blows that made even the oversized bag swing. Bruce set his jaw and stepped in to spot and brace the heavy bag for her. Neither of them said anything because they both had done this often enough to be comfortable with what they were doing. They weren't regular sparing partners—Bruce knew his limits and limitations—but he spotted for her on most weekends when they had the gym to themselves and she'd put him through a few rounds of Parkour or weight training.

 _Thwap-thwap! Thud. Thud._ _Thwap-thwap-thwap!_ He lost count when she'd reached around a hundred blows. She'd hardly slowed down during her assault, but now Natasha sank down to her knees and knelt there staring at her hands, watching the blood start to seep through the binding on one knuckle.

Bruce knelt down in front of her and leaned low enough to make eye contact with her. He smiled tentatively and she gave him a weak one back. He took her bound hands in his lap and removed the wraps. She had skinned her knuckles and they were starting to swell a bit, but that was all the damage he found as he gently probed each finger and joint. They'd need to get some ice on them soon. The bleeding had already stopped, so he just needed to apply a topical after she got cleaned up. He brought her left and then her right hand to his lips and kissed them.

Natasha finally looked up and gave him a half-hearted smile. When she wanted to talk, she would talk. He just hoped it was sooner than later.

"Are you hungry yet?" he asked her.

"Maybe."

"Pepper and I did the Buy-Local Market this morning and picked you up some real cow. I can make us a couple of burgers pretty quick," Bruce suggested.

She nodded. "That actually sounds pretty good. Let's get cleaned up."

Bruce was on his feet first and gave her a hand up. "Should we put Steve's bag away?"

"No, the turkey left it there last week, so I'm going to let him deal with it," she said huskily. "No blood on it—no foul."

On their way out of the gym, Natasha picked up her soiled uniform and boots and slung them over her shoulder, while Bruce grabbed a couple of cold-packs from the training room freezer and then handed them to Natasha as he exchanged them for her uniform and boots. "Here, I'll clean up your hand when we get upstairs, but you better apply the cold on them both now." She surrendered her equipment and took the small bags without an argument, but she didn't say anything further as they continued back to the apartment.

He wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be all right, that a good night's sleep would put the ghosts to rest, but he knew she wasn't ready for that. "Anything hazardous in your duffle I should know about?" he asked.

"No, for once it's just dirt, sweat, and a little soot. Don't worry, I'll take care of it," she said.

Bruce punched in the entry code and let them into their apartment. Natasha headed for the bathroom, and he swung by the kitchen to grab a basin and dumped some ice into it. At the last second, he grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and brought them along, too.

She'd only taken her socks off by the time he got there, so he helped her strip out of her clothes. There was no blood, except for her hands, but she was bruised in spots and he could see her neck and shoulder muscles were knotted up and tense. He wanted to lay her out on the bed and massage and manipulate all the tension out of her, but that would have to wait, too. To his surprise, once he had her stripped down and ready for the shower, Natasha pulled his t-shirt up and off over his head. "Join me," she whispered and slipped her injured hands beneath the waistband of his sweats and slid them down along with his boxers. He toed off his shoes and stepped out of his clothes.

Natasha ran her hands across his chest. For someone she'd initially thought of as a "fixer-upper" or a colleague with a work project, he'd turned into so much more. The day it had dawned on her that she didn't want a smooth-limbed pretty boy with no clear understanding of the world and its joys and cruelties, that she wanted a man with real honest scars and the gray hair he'd earned, she knew she wanted Bruce. Like no one else, he understood her and her contradictory motivations for doing what she did. She savored his complexities and commitment to helping others, and Bruce respected her efforts to do the same in her own way. They both held a dangerous monster whom they had not created but fought for control; for good or ill, both now accepted that part of themselves. Because of this common ground, they could be raw and vulnerable and honest with each other. They knew the ugliness and the beauty each were capable of doing and embraced each other all the harder for it. She had suspected they had all this painful bloody ground in common back when she was assigned to watch him at Culver, and she had known there was a spark between them if they both found the nerve to kindle it as far back as Kolkata.

"Tell me what you need," he said, his brown eyes so earnest it was almost painful for her to linger on them.

"I need you to help me feel alive," she whispered.

Bruce smiled. This he could do. "Let me start here," he said as he stroked her jaw and then delicately traced her lips with his right forefinger. She was so beautiful. He reached around her with his left arm and pulled her close as their lips met. He waited for her to open up to him before his tongue tasted her mouth. He supported her head and neck with his right hand, tangling his fingers in her hair. She reached around him with her left hand, stroking his lower back with that triangle of fine hair some men have just above and between the glutes. She pressed her hips into his and felt him stiffen in response as he began to rub against her naked warm skin on skin. She wrapped her right leg around his hip.

"Is this helping?" he asked. "Is this what you want?" His breathing had grown ragged with raw desire.

"I want you," she breathed in his ear. "I want you, Bruce, right now."

He'd maneuvered them to the vanity counter, so she hopped up on the edge while he grabbed a condom from the drawer and handed her a small applicator with the anti-radiation foam. They'd faithfully stuck with this practice since they'd first made love earlier that summer in the safe house, but as the data piled up that he wasn't toxic, she'd begun to plot a rebellion against the condoms. Her goal for him was to prove one element at a time that he couldn't harm her—not by his presence nor by his physical contact. However, today was not the day to argue her case about the condoms. She tossed the used applicator in the trash and used his phone to take a radiation scan (negative again) and watched as he unrolled the prophylactic over his sizable swollen cock. She took a moment to appreciate the "package" Bruce came in. In his frumpy over-sized professor clothes, he was easy to overlook or dismiss, especially beside their flashier teammates, but now that he'd had a real home and months of stability again, much of the stress-induced graying was gone from his curls and he carried himself straighter and with a more confident attitude. She now knew that with his metabolism he'd always tend toward thin, but he'd added muscle mass to his classically symmetrical build over the past few months. She had to smile as she watched him, Bruce could retreat into being shy and awkward in a heartbeat, but he'd mostly gotten past that with her. She was amazed he was so oblivious to how wonderfully masculine and beautiful he was, but Natasha certainly didn't overlook any of his charms whether they were obvious or subtle.

"Where do you want to take this?" he asked her.

For the first time that evening, she broke into a grin, "Why, Dr. Banner, I want to take you and your gorgeous erection to orgasm right here and now after a good long fuck."

Bruce laughed but didn't miss a beat, "Not the bedroom, not the shower, not the couch, not the coffee table, not the piano bench?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Not the kitchen, not the rug in front of the fireplace, not the laundry room, and not the foyer," she finished.

"Hey, we have not done it in the foyer," Bruce said with mock seriousness.

"No, none of those places will do, I want you right here, Big Guy," she said, taking his hands and guiding him to stand in front of her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer. "This is the spot right where I want you, Bruce."

"Good," he said, "because this is where I belong." He gently touched and cupped her breasts, circling her areolas with his thumbs as he leaned in to kiss her. "You're sure about this, right here?" he teased one last time.

"Shut up and kiss me, Banner," she ordered with a growl.

He moved his hands from her breasts to her hips, loving her softness and curves over firm muscles. Bruce kissed her lightly, moving from her mouth to her face and neck. "I'm going to mark you," he said and leaned in to slowly bite down on the tension-filled muscles at the base of her neck on the right side. Natasha couldn't help herself, she moaned, almost collapsing against him. He held her tightly to him and let her relax before he sucked hard to mark her.

"How did you do that? You turned me to jelly," she whispered as she felt the brief sharp pain of his bruising and claiming of her as his own.

"Ancient Vulcan love bite," he teased before repeating the process on her left side, taking his time as she moaned. He was biting just the right spot and not letting go until the tightness eased out of her.

"You are so warm," she said languidly. "It's like you sucked the tension right out of me."

"I hope there's still enough left to have sex," he said, pulling back a bit to give her a look with puppy-dog eyes and a pouty lower lip.

"Oh, don't you worry, Doc. You're not getting out of fucking me good and hard," she said with a smirk as she reached down between them to stroke him. He was still rock hard. "My, you have missed me!"

"Horribly," he said, pulling her hips closer as she guided him into her and wrapped her legs tighter around him. Her breath caught and she cried out as Bruce began to thrust into her. Natasha moved her arms to his shoulders and began to pant in rhythm with his thrusts. "Oh, Bruce. Don't stop. Don't stop." She wound her fingers through the curls at the back of his head and neck. He smelled so good as she breathed in his milky sweet and salt caramel scent. He ground his hips into her deeper, biting his lower lip in consentration. "Yes, Bruce, yes!" He kept up his insistent rhythm, bringing her closer and closer to the edge of bliss.

"Come for me, Nat!' he said hoarsely as she tightened up on him. "You're my girl! Come for me!" He pushed into her hard and dug in with his fingers into her glutes, avoiding her fresh injuries but knowing he was adding to the bruises.

Natasha cried out, "Oh, Bruce!" and he felt her inner walls clamp down hard on his shaft and she spasmed in waves. A blush rose in her pale neck and chest. "Give it to me, Bruce," she urged him. "Come for me, Lover!"

"I'm coming, Natasha!" he roared out and his body jerked. He let go and prayed the condom would hold. He felt a new wave of pleasure roll through him as he emptied into her, so he knew he was going into a Liminal state at the edge of Hulking-out. He groaned as the agony and pleasure washed over him in equal measure, and he threw his head back as a growl escaped him. Normally, they would have been in bed and he could have curled up, watching his hands for signs of green, but this time he pulled out of her and grabbed the counter to steady himself.

Normally, she wouldn't have touched him more than necessary in his Liminal state because he was in limbo between pain and euphoria, but she grabbed him around the torso with her right arm supporting him and held onto the base of the nearest faucet fixture with her left in order to steady them both. In a few seconds, it was over and they leaned into each other in a panting, trembling heap. He was almost hot to the touch and still flushed a bit green along his throat and chest, but it was fast disappearing from his hands. When he opened his eyes, they were still dark green, but the glowing green of the transitional phase was gone. As she watched, the warm browns returned to his pupils and he smiled at her. "Thank you, Natasha. Just when I think I couldn't love you anymore, you surprise me again."

She reached up and stroked his curls out of his eyes and they nuzzled foreheads. "I love you, Doc," she said and kissed him once again. They separated a bit, still grinning at each other and trying to catch their breaths.

"Well, if we're getting in the shower next, I'm sticking the beer in the ice," he finally said.

"Ah, we should have played with this," she teased, running her right hand through the basin of melting ice.

"Try it," he said with a smirk.

She fished an ice cube out of the basin and ran it across his forehead. It wasn't instantaneous, but it melted quickly. "You are my heater," she said shaking her head at him.

He gave her an I-told-you smirk. "Let's get cleaned up. I'm sure you're getting hungry now."

To tell the truth, she was, so they didn't waste time while showering or getting dressed in some comfortable clothes. Bruce insisted on treating her busted knuckle, but he still beat her out of the bedroom and headed to the kitchen. He'd already asked Friday to play "Happy Mix 1" in the background, so she knew she was in for Beatles and 80s music.

"You really ought to ice those hands some more," he said as he tossed her a bag of frozen peas from the freezer.

"Peas? Really?"

"Would you rather have corn or mixed veggies then?"

"I'm just surprised you use these and not the cold-packs," she noted.

"Those things refreeze solid, but the frozen veg fit the contours of your hand like a bean bag. Just don't let them get too mushy and keep changing them out."

"Ah, _Dr. Banner's Practical Tips to Avoid the Emergency Room_. We just need to get a publisher. I'm sure it will be a bestseller."

Bruce snorted from behind the refrigerator door. "With impractical ideas for keeping your temper during the Robot Apocalypse."

"If only you were a real doctor or an engineer or a rocket scientist," she teased.

"Ah-ah! I am a real doctor, twice over in fact, just not that kind of doctor." Bruce shut the refrigerator door and brought his armload of ingredients over to the counter and started organizing them. "But, I wanted to tell you, I'm only 15 hours of practicum away from having the EMT certificate now. I just don't know when I'll have a chance to get back to Kenya to finish it, especially with the political situation there."

"So they gave you credit for your hours at the Nairobi hospital?"

"Yah, Jenn got the letter yesterday and called me. Don't forget, we all have a meeting with her the day after tomorrow to go over some of the Reconciliation Meeting's details."

"It's hard to believe it's less than a week away. Have you heard anything from Wanda?"

"No, and Clint and Steve have both talked with her. She hasn't returned my calls or the emails," he said as he started the stove's grill function and turned on the ventilation hood system. Although he thought this setup was all too elaborate, he had to admit that it came in handy when you wanted to grill from the comfort of your own kitchen rather than hike up to the rooftop.

"Is the Big Guy cooperating?" she asked with interest.

"Grudgingly, but yes. He's talked to Cecily about the process and is pretty impatient to go and do what he can."

"That's our Big Guy," she said with a fond smile.

"Cecily says he offered to talk to Wanda, too."

"Wow, now that is a turnaround. I had the impression he would have liked to have done some serious roaring and breaking of things in her presence, so talking to her is certainly an improvement."

"I've tried about everything I can think of to get her to say she'll participate," Bruce continued. "You, Tony, and I, and the Big Guy of course, are the ones she affected the most. You and I have hashed it out with her. Tony is at least on speaking terms. We've presented her with all the reasons for participating in the Reconciliation process. She'll just have to make her mind up."

"I don't know what to tell you," Natasha said sadly. "Wanda is certainly an adult. We've all done our best, Bruce." She sighed and stared at her feet. After a bit, she looked up and focused her attention on his food preparations. "Okay, what are you doing here?" Natasha asked looking at his lineup of ingredients.

Bruce gestured with his hands toward each side, "Salad on the left. Cow products and associates on the right."

"You just put three whole heads of romaine in that gallon zip-lock bag with the dressing."

"Right, it's marinade. I'm going to grill them with the onion slices and the burgers."

"You're grilling the lettuce?" she said with raised eyebrows and enough vinegary skepticism to marinade something else.

"Yes. Just trust me. It's better than it sounds," Bruce said. "If I'd thought to get a pineapple, I'd grill fruit for dessert, too. I bet bananas would work."

"I leave you alone for fewer than twenty-four hours and you go grill crazy on me," she said with a smirk.

"Not crazy, I just want to try out something new. By the way, the meat is from the same farm on Long Island as we bought from before."

"If it had a name, I don't want to know about it this time," she said.

"Okay, just trying to honor the steer's life," he replied, needling her a bit.

"You are so mean," she teased back as she opened both beers and handed him one.

He took a swig and set the beer aside as he washed his hands one more time before working with the raw beef, adding the seasonings, and forming the patties on the waxed paper to keep the surfaces sterile. "Hey, would you check the grill please, Nat?"

She dunked the fingers of her uninjured hand in the ice water and flicked a few drops on the grill to watch them hiss and dance across the surface, "She's hot to trot, Doc."

"Yea," Bruce laughed as he washed his hands again and then retrieved his "Kiss the Cook" apron with the Hulk and Black Widow cartoon on it. The Bartons had given it to him and he'd have framed it, but Lila insisted he wear it every time he was at the farm and in the kitchen, which was inevitable when they visited. He neatly placed the four burgers and slices of sweet onion on the hot, ridged surface and stepped back. He turned the hood's exhaust to high and retrieved his beer so he could join Natasha as she leaned against the counter.

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was playing in the background, so they comfortably touched and then held hands by unspoken agreement. She nudged his shoulder and he gently nudged her back. That song finished and what she knew was his favorite came on. "Did you know you have 'Hey Jude' on both your 'Happy' and 'Sad' Mix Tapes lists?" Natasha asked.

"Yah, it can go either way. I just like the song." He looked thoughtful and shuffled his feet a bit. "It's technically perfect, and I think of you when I hear it."

"Oh, you're gonna make me tear up," she replied and she rested her head against his shoulder.

"Don't cry," he said and brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it. "You know it was written for Lennon's older son Julian, so it's advice from a father to his son."

"Ah, that explains some of the attraction for you," she said.

Bruce smiled in acknowledgment. "Time to flip," he said as he looked at his watch. Bruce used an Olivewood spatula to check the burgers and then flipped them along with sweet onions which were headed toward caramelizing. Next, he removed the heads of romaine from the marinade, drained them a bit, and laid them on the cooler side of the grill with a pair of tongs.

Natasha shook her head, "You've killed three perfectly good heads of lettuce."

"And a steer named . . . ," he ducked as the roll of waxed paper went zinging past his ear and skidded into the living room. "Okay, sorry, I deserved that," he quickly admitted to avoid having the pepper grinder, which was now in her hand, go airborne. "Please, not the pepper grinder. We're going to need that."

Natasha put the beloved grinder back down on the counter and went to retrieve the waxed paper roll from the living room. She made sure to give Bruce a quick swat on the backside as she walked past him. "Your ass is mine, Banner," she growled.

"Of course," he said with as lascivious a smile as he could muster while he turned the romaine. "Hey, do you want your buns grilled? If so, you better get them over here."

Natasha thought about throwing them after that bad bun pun (damn, he was rubbing off on her), but brought the package over so he could get things finished.

He slipped his left arm around her, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be giving you a hard time."

"It's okay," Natasha said. "I know you're trying to cheer me up."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Bruce asked.

"There's not that much to tell. I fucked up. We had a tip there were a couple of Hydra operatives in a certain area. My team went in and found them, but that wasn't all we found." She studied Bruce's face for a moment, making up her mind. "You've seen the file on Yelena Belova, right?"

"Yah, I've tried to help with the investigation into what AIM did to her and the extent of their so-called enhancement program. I had no idea she was still alive."

"Good luck figuring out that twisted plot. She should have been dead twice over, so you can imagine what a surprise it was to run across her. I had Markus with me and two newer field agents on my immediate recon team. This was supposed to be a really simple operation: identify the Hydra operatives and clear out. We found them easily enough, but they ducked into a restaurant, so Marko and I followed them in just to make sure they weren't trying to rabbit or go to ground, but guess who was sitting at the bar?"

"The blonde pretender."

"Right. I sent Marko and the other two back with instructions to give me a couple of minutes before I cleared out, too. Here is where I messed up. I had some new toys for tagging Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dee, so I thought why not see if I can get the ghost marked, and maybe track her later? I started back toward the women's room and our two Hydra operatives recognized Belova and drew their guns. She bolted and I missed getting the tracker on her."

"That stinks," said Bruce.

"Oh, it gets even stinkier. As a parting gift, Belova hit me with a barstool, so she obviously had me pegged." Bruce gave her an alarmed look. "Don't worry, you saw I only have a couple of bruises, but she did slow me down. That's when the bartender pulled out a shotgun and started firing after her. By the time I got back to the kitchen, she was out the door and half the kitchen staff was doing a Keystone Cops routine all trying to follow her through the same door at once. That's when it became pretty darn clear we'd found more than two squid and a trigger-happy bartender. I was about ready to turn around and take my chances up front when Dumb and Dee came in throwing whisky bottles, which are probably what eventually caught on fire. After that I called off the second team and got serious about getting out the back exit."

"I'm no tactician, but how was this really your fault?" Bruce asked as he took the last burger off the grill and placed it on the serving platter with the condiments he'd laid out.

"We didn't have enough agents on the perimeter when we followed Dumb and Dee into what turned out to be some sort of cell. I should have left with Marko instead of trying to place the tracker. I suppose I should have shot them all the first chance I had to pull a gun. That's what this old desk jockey who planned the mission suggested."

Bruce frowned, "That's not how S.H.I.E.L.D. normally operates."

"I know. Sometimes you can't win," she said with a shrug. "It will all be in the report."

"So what happened with the fire?" Bruce asked.

Natasha sighed and stared at the ceiling fan for a minute. "Ask me that after dinner."

Bruce nodded. "Okay, grab some forks and plates, and we'll sit at the table like civilized folk." He took in the platter with the burgers, romaine, and other items while Natasha brought the rest over to the kitchen table. It took a couple of trips, but they finally got settled down.

Bruce had used some kitchen shears to cut up the grilled romaine and added an aioli and Caesar dressing. Natasha prodded the portion on her plate with her fork before taking a bite. "Okay, this is like Laura's wilted lettuce salad with the hot bacon and vinegar dressing. Why didn't you just say that?"

"I've never had Laura's salad to know what it was," Bruce admitted.

"Wait till May when the loose leaf lettuce is up in the garden. It'll happen."

"Looking forward to it," he said between bites. Prince's "Raspberry Beret" came on the sound system, and he smiled across the table at her.

She smiled back at him as she chewed another fork full of salad. "We could dance between courses," she suggested.

"Maybe for dessert," he grinned. They finished their salad and moved on to the burgers.

"So you are actually going to do this? Eat some cow, huh?" she teased.

"I grew up on cow and pig and chicken and canned tuna. I just don't choose to get my protein from animals if I don't have to anymore. If I do, I try to be ethical about it. You know that. Come on before they cool down too much," he said sliding the platter to her.

Natasha put the works on hers and slid the plate back to him. "Pardon me if I don't wait for you," she said and dug in because she was hungry and the tomato and lettuce were causing everything to shift off the bun already.

Bruce laughed because he was happy to see her eat. He went for a more minimalist approach in constructing his with the meat and grilled onions and a little brown mustard. He forked a couple of heirloom tomato slices onto his plate to enjoy separately from the burger since they usually colluded with the lettuce and sauces in burger stacking failures. He had to admit the beef tasted good, and it had been over a year since Tony had thrown the July 4th roof party that might as well have been sponsored by Webber grills if you judged by the amount of roasted, grilled, and smoked meats. He'd had a burger and a bratwurst then and felt sluggish for the next two days, but they had tasted good, too. "Well, how is it?" he asked.

He'd caught Natasha with her mouth full, so she just gave him a thumbs up. He took his time and waited for her to finish. "Going for round two? There are two left."

"No," she said as she wiped away the last of the tasty mess with her napkin. "One was plenty. I'm done. We can save the other two for tomorrow."

"Sounds reasonable to me," he said as he got up and started bussing the table. Natasha picked through the condiments replacing lids and returning them to the refrigerator. Soon everything in the kitchen was put away and cleaned up. It was almost 9:00pm and Chicago's "Just You 'n Me" was playing.

 _You are my love and my life_

 _And you are my inspiration_

 _Just you 'n me_

 _Simple and free_

 _Baby you're everything I've ever dreamed of_

"I think you still owe me a dance, Ms. Romanoff," Bruce said as they stood there in the kitchen, and he offered his hand to her.

She took his hand and he pulled her close, gently swaying her with the music and looking into her eyes. She smiled up at him and he smile back at her.

 _Give me your own special smile_

 _Promise you'll never leave me_

 _Just you 'n me_

 _Simple and free_

 _Life is so easy_

 _When you're beside me_

 _Oh girl_

"'Simple and free,' huh?" she said.

"Yah, and 'easy.' We both know it never is. Not for long." He held her a little closer and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

 _Come hold me close_

 _Never release me_

 _Oh baby don't release me_

 _Open your arms, let my love in_

 _Let me in, let me in, let me in, LET ME IN_

 _Love me tonight, love me forever . . ._

"I'm here when you want to talk about it," he said.

"I do and I don't," she replied, so he continued to dance with her, kissing the top of her head and gently rubbing her back.

 _Just you 'n me to carry on_

 _Simple and free my lovely_

 _To flow as one as love's reward_

 _Lovin' you girl is so damn easy . . ._

"It's a little early to go to bed _bed_ , but I could probably keep you amused if you want to take this in the bedroom," he offered.

"If we can go brush our teeth first, you have a deal," she said with a mischievous grin.

Bruce laughed, "I would never deny you oral hygiene, my lovely."

Natasha gave him a quick peck on the cheek and they both cleaned up in the bathroom. As she was finishing, she noticed her duffle bag in the doorway of the laundry room and decided to get the dirty clothes out before she forgot about them. Since she'd been disguised as a tourist, she had a tropical print blouse and khaki slacks that hadn't stood up so well during their evacuation of the building. She thought she'd wash them and see what was worth salvaging. Natasha knew something was way off when the clothes came out wadded into a ball instead of her neat traveler's rolls. "What the fuck!" She didn't have to be Peter Parker for her spider senses to go off. She gently set the wad of clothing on top of the washer. As she gingerly unwrapped the slacks and got down to the shirt, she was shocked to see the dried browns and still-damp reds of a bloodstain. The strong smell of iron and saltiness almost knocked her back a step. She felt something hard in the middle of the cloth, so she took a breath and finished unrolling it without touching it. The object was metal and only about four inches long and a half an inch wide. Once she'd looked past the dried gore, she recognized it as a double-bladed pocketknife, which had obviously been put to use. "Bruce," she called, "do we have any of those forensic kits here in the apartment?"

"Uh, yah. Give me a moment." He walked past her back down the hall to the second bedroom. In a moment, he returned with a gallon-size plastic bag with a variety of containers for various sizes and types of evidence samples and the equipment for gathering them. "What do you need a forensic kit for?" he asked and then he saw the bloody clothes and knife resting on top of the washer. "Okay, let me get this opened up." He put on a glove and took the knife from the pile and slipped it into a small bag and sealed it. Then he held open one of the larger collection bags so she could slide the clothing in, and he sealed it, too. "I hope that's everything. What the hell was that?" he asked.

"I think it was a calling card," Natasha said as she tried to even out her breathing.

"That looks like a pen knife," he said as he examined it through the plastic. It's hard to tell with the blood on it, but it looks fairly old, like pre-WWII. I'd have to get a look at the blades to know for certain, but my grandfather had one a lot like it."

"Okay, I'm going to text Clint and Steve, and I'll get this turned in tomorrow. Right now, I don't even want to think about how it got there," she said in exasperation. She took an empty laundry basket and completely unzipped the duffle before shaking all of its contents out into the basket. She poked through them briefly. "Good, no more surprises from that bitch or whomever!"

"When did you change out of the street clothes and into your uniform?" Bruce asked.

"Not till we'd gotten everyone safely out of the building. Someone must have put it in my bag after that." She shook her head, "We are not going to solve this little mystery tonight, Bruce."

"Nope, not tonight," he agree. "Why don't you go wash up and get your texts sent, and then let's go to bed?"

In a very few minutes she was done, and they were in bed cuddling and kissing since Natasha really didn't feel like talking now. Bruce was okay with that, but he'd hoped to unburden her of a little of what was weighing her down. She finally laid her head on his chest and started to relax and then breathe deeply as she drifted off to sleep.

It wasn't long until Bruce nodded off and began to dream. He was walking through a wooded area, a lot like Tony's property upstate, which they'd visited the week before. It was a summer evening, and the insects and frogs were in full song. He had to be near the lake that had been a quarry. After a while, the trees thinned and he walked into the meadow that was near the lake. He could see someone sitting on one of the boulders near the shore, dangling a foot in the clear water. He was bare from the waist up, but had on a pair of Bruce's purple uniform pants. As Bruce approached, the person looked up and smiled in recognition. "Bruce!" he cried in a high-pitched voice and jumped down from his perch on the rock and splashed through the shallows to meet him. Bruce knelt down as Adam ran into his arms and knocked him on his backside, landing on top of him at the edge of the meadow grass. They grinned at each other and Adam leaned forward and gently head-butted Bruce before he kissed him on the forehead and climbed off Bruce's chest. The boy's hair was all wild, dark curls today and the freckles across his nose stood out as if he'd been spending the summer in the sun.

"What are you doing, Adam?" Bruce asked.

The child laughed as if it were too obvious, "Waiting on you of course." He looked at Bruce and became more sober. "I'm sorry. I can see you're worried about something. What's wrong with Tasha?"

"She had a rough mission and I couldn't get her to talk about the part that's really bothering her," Bruce explained as he lay there on his back. "She apparently had another run-in with the other Black Widow, Yelena Belova, who has tried to take her out to claim her name several times. Belova's nearly killed her twice before and this time was kind of weird. Natasha found a bloody penknife in with her gear right before we went to bed. Belova may or may not have left it there, but someone is trying to rattle her," Bruce concluded. "Oh, and there was also a fire and she helped evacuate people, but she really doesn't want to talk about it." He sat up and gathered his legs up to his chest so he could hug his knees. Adam sat beside him comfortably sprawled and leaning back on his elbows like the truly young.

"It probably reminds her of some of those incidents out of her past you refuse to read about on the Internet," Adam suggested. (Of course he didn't add that he had surreptitiously gotten Bruce to download it for him when Bruce was distracted.)

"You may be onto something," Bruce acknowledged.

"I hate to tell you this, but you may be stuck waiting her out and she's just as stubborn as you are," Adam speculated as he pulled a stalk of grass and selected the inner stem to chew.

"Speaking of stubborn," Bruce said with a smirk, "I hear you are willing to talk to Wanda. I'm impressed."

"Against my better judgment," Adam mumbled then continued, "but I've been thinking about what you said about the bigger picture. Don't get me wrong, I want to be petty, but it's stupid. This shouldn't be about us; it's about the people who really got hurt in Johannesburg."

"That's really very mature of you. I know it's hard."

"I'm taking the highroad," the boy said looking Bruce in the eye. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

"It's a good story," Bruce said, ruffling Adam's hair. "I'm really proud of you."

Adam grinned, "Now what else is bugging you?"

"I never thought I'd say this, but I wish we'd been out in the field with her or at least on the Quinjet. Clint was there, but he was on the opposite side of the perimeter."

"Seriously, do you think we could have helped? As Hulk I'm not exactly made for stealth-mode, and you're definitely not a trained field agent, even if you do a decent enough job of blending in with the scenery. Besides, what could you do against someone who is basically a younger and more desperate version of Tasha with all of her ruthlessness and spy training? No contest. Game over."

"I've been thinking about that, but it's almost like I'm plotting against Natasha to do it. I've been thinking about ways to use her mixed DNA to identify and track her."

"I'm pretty sure I could crush her if I could get ahold of her," Adam mused.

"Her first move would probably be to blind you and then she'd go for the throat to take the air or blood out of you. It's not like gentlemanly sparing with Steve. If Steve were serious, he'd go for the throat or spinal column with the shield. Cripple us or decapitate us."

"Wow, you have been thinking about this. How morbid of you," Adam said with a cheeky grin. "That's probably why you've been working so hard to update VERONICA."

"You're out of bounds. You know that's off limits to you, Adam," Bruce said as he leaned forward to look the childlike being in the eye. "I'm serious. You're on your honor not to go there."

The boy stared at Bruce with his deep green eyes and nodded. "Cross our heart," he said and gestured with his right thumb crossing his chest.

"Good man. I have to count on you to be my better half," Bruce said.

"I'll stay out of VERONICA, but if we ever have a chance, I want first crack at Belova."

"That's not our call. If we're going to be on the team, we work together and follow orders."

Adam puffed out a very Hulk-like breath, "I understand. Play nice if we ever want to be invited back to the next party. Blah-blah-blah."

In case it's not occurred to you today, Big Guy, we're usually singled out as the weakest link, and I'm kind of tired of it. Going crazy and being a rogue is partly to blame for that."

"You're preaching to the choir here, Bruce. I'm fed up with it, too. We're halfway through our training stint with Logan and it's helping. You're doing well with the Parkour and martial arts."

"Yes, but is it helping you or not?" Bruce asked bluntly.

"I think so. They're both, in part, forms of discipline and that's what I have trouble with when I can't focus. It's not like we've been able to do much field-testing since everyone who's not on the immediate team pees their pants when there's even a mention of a code green."

"Can't exactly blame them," said Bruce.

"Sometimes I feel like we're at a dead end with this or we're being blocked. I can't figure out why you become so distant and shut off from me when you're not dreaming. Why does most of what we talk about here leave your head when you wake up? It's like I don't exist for you."

"I know. I don't understand it either. I stood in front of the closet mirror a few days ago and just stared, knowing something huge was missing. I pulled the brain scans up from last month and just looked at the deviations in the neural cells. It may be something as small as scar tissue building up over time to reinforce the mental blocks I've used to deal with early traumas. Tell Cecily to bring that up with me and maybe we could trip something."

"All right. It won't hurt to try that. The other thing I was thinking about was what Logan suggested about not going 100% Hulk. He thinks that if we go to 50% or 75% that the pain won't be so bad. I'm not sure which one of us would be in charge or if both of us would be there and able to better access our intelligence and fine motor and muscle control. . . ."

Bruce suddenly gave a sharp intake of breath and reached for his throat, gasping for air. Adam immediately knew something was happening in the real world, and he dove into the void where Bruce normally passed off control to him as he stepped aside and let Adam take on his responsibilities as the Hulk. It always meant taking on a lot of pain during the physical transition, even when it was relaxed and voluntary it was blindingly painful, but it was much worse when it was forced by one or the other of them. Bruce was in physical pain and in a panic, so they were doing this old school tonight. Amazingly, Bruce had enough presence of mind to know he needed Adam's help and make room so Adam could take over without having to fight for control. As Adam comfortably slid into control of Bruce's expanding body, he made up his mind to control his size since he knew Bruce's body had been asleep in bed with Tasha. The room wasn't that big, so %75 of normal Hulk size ought to still be huge and strong enough—just maybe that would leave room for some added brain power, too.

Hulk was lying on his side and curled up in a tight fetal position, shoving Natasha away with his right hand and clutching his throat with his left. Adam started to straighten his spine with the idea of sitting up, but he couldn't catch his breath. The bedroom was dark, but he recognized Natasha's low, guttural attack cry in his ear as she launched a knee right at his crotch. Thank God, his reflexes and instincts for self-preservation were quicker than her nightmare-fueled attack, and he successfully blocked her, throwing blankets and sheets over her to slow her down. "Damn it, I've put way too much time into fixing those for you to bust the family jewels now, Tasha!" was what he tried to say, but he realized nothing was coming out because she had probably hit Bruce in the throat and broken their windpipe. As the Hulk, it would repair itself quickly, but it would still take a few minutes to heal up. In the meantime, he'd didn't plan on giving her anymore free shots, even if she probably couldn't do that much damage to him in this mostly Hulk-out form.

"Tasha," he wheezed out hoarsely. "Wake up! This is Hulk. You're having a nightmare. Wake up!"

She was still tangled in the sheets, but struggled to her knees and went for his jaw with a double uppercut, not what he'd predicted, but he had both her fists in his massive right hand now and his left was ready when she swung her feet toward his gut. He caught her lower legs, and as she tried to kick free, he swung his left leg over and neatly pinned both of her legs between his thighs at a safe distance from his crotch. _How's that for irony_ , Adam thought, but he wasn't about to say it out loud. He had her immobilized, but she was still struggling. Much more of this and she was going to hurt herself. He thought about forcing her under the shower, but that would expose him to the not so tender mercies of her kicks again. "Friday, would you please turn on the lights to low?" he said a little more clearly than a few minutes before.

"Certainly, Hulk," chimed the Interface's perky voice.

At least Friday could understand him. "Time?" he asked.

"1:14am EST."

As the lights came up, Natasha blinked and shook her head, "What. The. Fuck. Just happened?"

"I think you were having a nightmare and punched Bruce in the throat, so he needed me to come referee a few rounds. Do you think you're done trying to kick the shit out of us?"

"I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Is Bruce all right?"

Adam let go of Natasha's hands and released her legs, "I can breathe and swallow, so Bruce should be fine. Just don't ask either of us to sing tomorrow."

"And you TALK!" she said as she rubbed the feeling back into her hands and rolled to a sitting position. "You're saying things in full sentences. You're sarcastic. I love it. I mean, I knew you could do it. How'd this happen, Big Guy?!"

"I don't know," Adam stammered. "Maybe Bruce would." Adam looked inwardly for Bruce, but couldn't immediately find him. He looked deeper and retraced his path back to the meadow by the lake. Bruce hadn't moved. He was lying there curled up with his arms around his middle. There was some blood drying on the grass where he'd coughed it up. Adam knelt down and touched Bruce's shoulder, "Bruce, wake up."

To Adam's relief, Bruce stirred though he didn't open his eyes. "Tired, so tired," he croaked in a raspy voice.

Adam bent down and picked Bruce up. He didn't want to just leave him, so he switched to his replica of the apartment and gently laid Bruce on the couch with a pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket. "Rest up, Big Guy. I'll be back to check on you after a while."

Only a few seconds had gone by in the real world. He looked at Natasha with some concern, "Bruce is really tired, Tasha, so we're going to have to let him rest a bit. I think finally being able to talk has something to do with me being three-quarters Hulked-out instead of 100%." He didn't add that he thought Bruce was willing him all of his control while he recovered. Bruce couldn't get the answers from Natasha, but maybe Adam could with the communication and intellectual tools Bruce had just sacrificed to give him.

Natasha nodded, "Okay, that seems sensible. So, talk to me, Big Guy. There's always so much going on behind your eyes. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'd like to talk to you about what just happened. Was it a nightmare? What's going on to cause this?"

"Are you sure you aren't Bruce because that's what he's been trying to get out of me since I got back from the mission?"

"No, I'm not Bruce. I just share the occasional bit of headspace and poor judgment calls with him. Now, quit changing the subject. I just found him curled up in a field where he coughed up a puddle of blood as a result of your physical handiwork. You would have killed him with a couple more hits like that. You owe it to him to get this out."

She looked both shocked and horrified. Adam wasn't sure if it was because the words came out of him or if the truth of what he'd said had hit home. "Okay, I deserved that," she said, "but . . . "

"There's always one of those," Adam said with more sarcasm than playfulness.

"BUT you don't know what weeds we're going to get into. You have no idea what I've done," she said, showing more raw emotion than normal.

"Try me. I'm not sweet, confused Bruce," he said raising his voice and then dropping it low. "I protect him from this shit. I'm the one with blood splattered across my face and caked on my hands and feet like mud. I'm my father's son. Bruce hasn't looked at your records on line because he loves and trusts you. I've looked at every one of them because I love him. Now, tell me what's driving you to this."

He had finally hit a nerve. "I shouldn't have to tell _you_ I'm afraid. _YOU_ of all people should know and understand that. I have put my past in the grave too many times to count and still it comes back. I can't walk by a hospital that I don't hear screams. I can't see that damn Yelena, that I don't remember how the Red Room broke and controlled me. I can't protect myself, so how can I protect anyone else? I am fucking useless if I can't do that! Who the hell am I if I can't do that! Who the hell am I?"

Adam reached out carefully and touched the side of her face, gently wiping the tears away with his thumb. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, that this catharsis would fix things, but he respected her too much to lie. "I promise you, Tasha, I will always have your back, and I won't hesitate when a job needs to be done. Bruce and I would both take away your pain if we could. I'm sorry to have to push you like this, but you and I are both lethal while Bruce is, well, Bruce."

She nodded. "I understand what you're saying, and I'm glad I can count on you, Big Guy. I promise I have your back and Bruce's."

"Thank you," he said, giving her a lopsided smile. "Okay, now that I've made you feel like crap—you're welcome—what would make you feel better?"

Natasha laughed ruefully, "To tell you the truth, I'm pretty exhausted. Would you stay and make sure I'm safe enough for Bruce to be in the same bed?"

"I can do that," said Adam. He had been so intently focused on Natasha that he'd barely examined himself or the room. He was about a foot too tall or long for the bed and his hands looked to be just a bit paler than his normal green. Bruce's pajama shorts were tight around the waist, and as he sat up to get a better look, they came apart with a ripping sound. "Whoops," he said, and Natasha laughed.

"Don't worry. Those shorts' days were numbered. Do you want me to see if he has a bigger pair or maybe some uniform pants?"

Adam was a little uncertain, "Is this what Bruce normally wears?"

"That or boxer shorts or nothing," she said with a raised eyebrow. "I've seen you naked, Big Guy. You don't need to impress me or be embarrassed."

"I'll take the uniform pants," he said. For the first time he noticed she was only wearing a spaghetti-strap tank top and very small panties. They both were a forest green with just a little bit of lace. The top was slightly tight across her breasts and only went down to just above her navel. Her hair was tousled and fell to just below her shoulders. He was overwhelmed with the desire to touch it. He knew it had to be soft. As she dug through Bruce's dresser looking for uniform pants for him, Adam looked at her scars and suddenly felt the desire to track down every spy, soldier, and mercenary who had put a mark on her skin and make short work of them.

As Natasha handed him the uniform pants, he found himself wanting other things from her, and part of him panicked as these unfamiliar thoughts and desires. This was just wrong of him. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Adam normally oriented toward the asexual end of the scale while Bruce was a highly sexual person who had found his match in Natasha. As a being without a real body, Adam had never had a reason or a means to be stimulated that way because he'd never felt a connection to the "pleasures of the flesh" or had a desire to reproduce. He understood these things in connection to and through Bruce, but they weren't of much interest to him, except when they affected Bruce. If this was another "gift" Bruce had given him along with the ability to speak during this transformation, Adam prayed he would take it back.

"May I use your bathroom? I promise I'll be careful," he requested.

"Of course you may," Natasha said, a bit surprised he felt it necessary to ask.

"Thanks," he said and eased carefully off the bed and held together what was left of the shorts with one hand. After he closed the door, he let the tatters of the shorts fall to the floor and stepped out of them. He could count the number of times he'd seen himself in a mirror on one hand before he'd started working with the therapy team, so he took a moment to study himself in the large, well-lighted mirror. Well, he was certainly big and green—even if he was a few shades lighter than normal—and apparently he'd become a little excited. As he stepped closer to the mirror, he studied his face for a few moments, looking for traces of Bruce's familiar handsome features. There were a few but mostly he thought his face looked distorted and crude, but he looked more acceptable when he smiled and made faces.

"How are you doing in there?" Natasha asked.

"I'm fine," he said, realizing he'd wasted too much time at the mirror, and he went ahead and relieved himself before pulling on the uniform pants. He washed his hands in the sink and flushed the toilet before opening the door.

She had lain down on her side of the bed and seemed to have already gone to sleep. Adam sighed with relief. He carefully turned off the light switch and slipped in as quietly as he could. He'd never shared an actual bed with anyone before—platonically or otherwise. Adam had to angle himself a bit, but it was a large enough bed to do that. He nearly jumped when Natasha's foot touched his and she rolled over next to him, draping an arm across his stomach. He lifted his arm out of the way and she snuggled closer, running a hand across his thick abs and stroking the hair on his chest. In her groggy state, Natasha clearly thought he was Bruce. He settled his arm around her shoulders and held her close. After an internal debate, he finally succumbed to curiosity and temptation and touched her hair. It was soft and he gently stroked it with a finger before he made himself stop and moved his hand back to her shoulder. She stirred again and resettled herself higher on his chest. He stroked her back and leaned his head forward to smell her hair. He felt his chest tighten and he laid his head back on the pillow. This was enough. He looked inward and found Bruce sitting up on the couch.

"What's going on?" he asked with a yawn.

"I need you to take this back. I don't know how you boosted my communication skills, Bruce, but you've given me your feelings, too. I can't take the temptation."

Bruce rubbed his face, "Slow down, I don't know how I did that."

"Please, I'm going to ruin everything if I follow through on how I feel."

"All right, let's the two of us switch back then, and hope that puts things to rights," Bruce said and he slipped back into his body as it began to contract. That woke him up a bit and he stretched as Natasha resettled herself on his shoulder. He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. "I'm home, Babe. Please don't punch me again without a little warning."

"I promise I won't," she said. "I think I gave poor Hulk a hard-on."

"I think you've scared the shit out of both of us tonight," he said yawning sleepily.

"Then my work here is done," she said and closed her eyes again. "Don't wake me up till 7:00am or I'll kick your butt all over again."

The only answer Bruce offered was a soft snore. Inside, he was checking on Adam. Bruce found him lying on the couch wrapped up in the same blanket he'd laid over Bruce. Instead of looking like he was six or even like the Hulk, Adam looked like Bruce in his painful, awkward teens. "Are you okay?" Bruce asked sitting down beside him.

"No," he said, "it still hurts. I hate this feeling. I'm completely confused."

"Adam, it's okay. It's taken a long time, but you're growing up. She's a beautiful woman and she cares about you. It's not that unusual to develop a crush on someone."

"Why does it hurt like this? I'm going to ruin everything. I can't even look at her again, and I promised I'd have her back. I'm an idiot."

Bruce rubbed Adam's back. "I know it feels like the world is over, but this is going to pass. You may return right back to the status quo or you might find developing emotional attachments isn't such an awful thing."

"Fine, give me some time, so I can figure this out," Adam said sullenly and rolled over, putting his back to Bruce.

Bruce leaned over and quickly kissed the top of Adam's head before he could protest, and then he rose and left. Bruce kept walking until he found the woods he'd been walking through at the start of the night's dreams. He decided to keep going to the lake and soon he was in the meadow and crossed it to find the spot where they'd sat and he bled on the ground. He continued on to the shore where he retrieved an abandoned child-size bucket and filled it with water so he could disperse the blood.

As he turned around, he saw Adam walking toward him out of the woods. At first, he looked like Bruce's twin, but he grew younger as he got closer and started to run. "I knew you'd be here."

"I'm that predictable?"

"Yes, when it comes to cleaning up, you are completely predictable, even if it's all just in your head."

Bruce laughed and bent down to wash the blood into the earth as Adam watched. "Well, are we good, Big Guy?"

"We're good," Adam said in a much deeper voice. "I just have some questions so I won't embarrass us too much the next time I see Tasha." Adam wasn't full on Hulk, but Bruce had to look up to speak to him.

"Are we clear she's _my_ lover?" said Bruce looking at Adam hard.

"Yes. And she's my friend and my colleague as well as yours," Adam replied in return.

Bruce smiled, "Agreed. I have one more question."

"Shoot, Doc."

"Where were you in sixth grade when all of us boys had to watch 'My Body and Me for Young Men' and get the STD lecture?"

"I was probably napping in the back of your head."

" _You_ , sir, are the predictable one," Bruce said tapping Adam's massive chest. "Listen up then because we already have an adult body, so we'll start this lesson with secondary sex characteristics and arousal or would you find it more useful to start with something less academic?"

"Just don't make me sorry I asked," Adam rumbled. "Come on, let's got sit on the rocks if this is going to take a while."

 **End Notes:** Congratulations, you have made it through the longest chapter I plan to ever write for this saga. Please ask me any questions you might have because it involves a lot of odd Liminal things going on with Adam and Bruce that make this transition to Hulk exceptional because of the unique circumstances. (As all good scientists know, sometimes you have a breakthrough, but afterward you have to find out if you can replicate the results again.)

Also, this is my brief ode to Joe Fixit and the Gray Hulk; admittedly, they are not my favorite versions of the Big Guy because they are a long way from what Adam is. Here, they are a persona that he tries on, but he's not comfortable with it in the long run.

Yelena Belova, the other Black Widow, is all Autumn_Froste's idea and we might just be seeing more of her in the future since there is still a mystery left unsolved.

Finally, there is a collage cover associated with this that I'll put up on Tumblr just in case you want to see a munchkin who reminds me of Adam. I'll also have it up on WattPad and in a bit as a separate entry.

Questions, comments, and conversations always welcome!


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary:**

A biologist, a physicist, an engineer, and a psychiatrist sit around a table and mostly act like adults.

(I hope this is the Betty chapter you were looking for.)

 **Notes:**

Sorry this is getting posted late. The site still hates my MacBook. I'm sad to say I need to take a couple of weeks off from writing our wee tale here, so I can get a much overdue piece of academic writing finished. It's killing me that the weekly streak is coming to an end at 38, but I will be back as soon as I can and do a better job on both this and the "serious" project. After that it's straight into a new streak, I promise (takes right index finger and crosses heart).

Because I was so late working on this, I did not get it to my wonderful beta-reader. Therefore, any errors or flaws are 100% on me!

\- - -((0))- - -

"I knew Lee was on the program, but I can't believe you're traveling this late," Bruce said to Dr. Betty Ross-Sampson who was almost eight months into her second pregnancy. They were sitting at a table toward the back of a large commons space that opened up to a three-story atrium. The University Center blended classical Georgian exteriors on the west side with an ultra modern interior with massive windows on the eastern side and a glass ceiling that supported the original central clock tower with a steel interior superstructure glazed white. The tower seemed to float on a glass cloud while curving white staircases flowed upward in a zigzag layout to the third and fourth floors.

"This was our last chance to leave town before the little guy gets here, so when Lee's parents offered to keep Madeline, we thought, 'Hey, it's now or never!'" she explained genially. Bruce smiled back at her fondly. He thought she looked radiant, and as Lee and Tony made their way back from the bar through the crowd of mostly academic types, he could see how happy she and the tall, dark-haired psychiatrist were together just by the looks on their faces. As indifferent as Bruce was to many social cues, their body language was easy for even him to read. A few minutes ago, Bruce had to smile at the way Lee insisted on Betty putting her feet up and her playful resistance.

"Two ginger ales, one for the beautiful scientist and one for the lightweight," said Tony as he and Lee handed Betty and Bruce their drinks. The two men sat down on the opposite side of Betty from Bruce at the small round table. Tony pulled a palm-sized metallic device from his inside breast pocket and set it on the table. It looked like a lighter but none of them smoked; in fact, it was a smoke-free building on a smoke-free campus. "Just a little help to prevent prying eyes and ears from getting a clear read on our conversation," Tony explained with a raised eyebrow. "Is that okay, everyone?" The couple nodded and Bruce smirked and nodded his head as well. Yes, indeed, Tony thought of everything. "It's a distortion bubble that plays with light and audible sound," Tony added.

"Wow, just like a cone of silence on Get Smart," said Lee, and Betty gestured as if she was going to elbow him. "Hey, we're all old enough fossils to get that reference. It wasn't meant as an insult!" Lee responded with a chuckle.

Tony grinned, "None taken. I wish I'd thought of it first. Anyway, it should give us some privacy from anyone beyond about ten feet."

"I'm just glad you're making less destructive things, Tony, and not working so much with the military," said Betty. "My father has enough toys as it is."

"We've shifted away from conventional weapons making and toward clean energy, so I do sleep a little easier . . . at least when I do sleep," said Tony with a doleful smile.

"Which Pepper would tell you still isn't enough," added Bruce with his own lopsided smile.

"And Nat would confirm you're the pot calling the kettle black," snorted Tony.

"Well, getting pregnant and having kids pretty much solved that problem for me," laughed Betty.

"That's true for the both of us," said Lee with a grin. "I guess that just comes with the territory."

After the chuckling died down, Bruce cleared his throat, "Not to change the subject too much because I want to come back to it, but I need to thank you both for giving testimony at the World Court Hearings and for Lee being a consultant to the Agreements Oversight Committee last summer. It meant a tremendous amount to me, and so did helping us find Major Sparr. I think Kat really changed some key opinions with her testimony about the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project and Gen. Ross's keeping its true purpose a secret from us until after the accident. I can't thank either of you enough for your support," Bruce told the couple.

"That's not a problem, Bruce. I'm glad we could help," Lee said with his arm around Betty. "I felt so bad about what happened when you were attacked at Culver. I had no idea that the General held such an epic grudge for you. I'm sorry. I was just trying to look out for Betty, and I let my insecurities get in the way. I hope that now I've helped to set some things right between us. I sincerely want you to get the help and support you need."

"That's okay, Lee. It seems like a lifetime ago. I certainly understand your motivations," Bruce acknowledged. "I probably would have done the same thing in your place."

"Anyway," said Betty, bringing the subject back a more comfortable topic, "we were both really happy to do what we could, Bruce. Your cousin Jenn and Tony here made it easy. We're just really glad things turned out as well as they did."

"Yes, all things considered, it did turn out mostly for the better," Bruce conceded with a small smile. "It's been a very humbling experience, but well worth it on multiple levels. Some of the requirements and restrictions have been a pain in the ass, but we've all learned a great deal, especially from experiencing the Reconciliation Process."

"We watched some of the live streaming of the public meetings. That had to be very stressful," said Lee.

"To tell the truth, listening to people's stories was very important to me and, frankly, to Hulk as well. It was hard for him to sit there in my head and not do something because he wanted to show he was sorry and not just say it. I kept him as close to the surface as I could, but it was pretty taxing for both of us, especially by the third day of the listening sessions. Not that many people wanted to talk to Hulk in person as opposed to me, but the ones who did were very kind and forgiving once they met him."

"They didn't release the video of him with the participants till much later, but it was very moving," Betty said. "I think he was surprised by Ms. Maximoff, but he handled it quite well. Are you still working with the foundation that was formed as a result of the process?"

"Oh, yes, the Johannesburg Reconciliation Foundation is healthy and active and ongoing. I, uh, we've been returning at the beginning of each month for three- to five-day projects. There wasn't a lot of clean up left for us to help with by the time we were cleared to travel there, but Hulk enjoyed working with the memorial gardens and constructing the earthen works. We're scheduled to help with the rain garden section when we go back next month. As long as there's work and they want us, we'll probably keep going down long past what is required since we've made connections and friends there now. Tony and I also have some long-term infrastructure projects the local community has identified that are still in the planning stages."

"Hold on a second," said Lee, "I'm just amazed at how you're working with your alter ego. You seem like you're getting along well and cooperating with each other now. Is this a new development or am I missing something?"

Bruce laughed, "I thought you meant Tony for a second."

"So did I," smirked Tony.

"No, sorry, the Hulk."

"All right," Bruce said after a moment, "since last May, Hulk and I have had a truce and things have been improving ever since. We've gone from being in constant conflict to learning to communicate and finally to existing together and coordinating our efforts. Honestly, it's been a huge relief. Also, Lee, I should thank you for recommending Cecily. She has worked out really well as our therapist."

"I'm glad to hear that," the psychiatrist replied as he continued to study Bruce. "Considering her brother's case, I thought Cecily might have some insights that would be helpful to you and Hulk."

Bruce nodded in agreement. Cecily's brother had manifested powers and the complications were so serious that he died. They had talked about it during one session when Bruce had brought up his suicide attempt after his initial accident when he had realized his condition was chronic. He'd had some low days since Johannesburg and Sokovia, too, but he'd worked through them and asked for help when he needed it. It wasn't clear if mental illness or depression was the case with Cecily's brother, but his death had led her into specializing in the treatment of so-called "enhanced" individuals and other difficult clients.

"Fortunately, the whole therapy team has been wonderful," Bruce said. "Sometimes the progress has been sideways or backward instead of straight forward, but both of us enjoy working with the team during sessions, and Maggie has really made a connection with Hulk. He's very fond of her." Bruce paused a moment to consider his next words. "I think getting us both diagnosed on the autism spectrum was really crucial. It explained so much of our behaviors and that's really helped inform how to work with Hulk and me as well."

Tony had been silently watching the interactions between Bruce and the couple. He'd been tempted to nudge his friend under the table, but he'd stopped himself when he realized this was a conversation Bruce and probably the other two people needed to have. In fact, this might be the only chance Bruce would ever have to talk to Betty or her husband this frankly, so Tony thought he should take it. If Bruce were going to get confessional, these were probably two of the safest people he could have for an audience. Jenn and Tony had spent several hours with the couple prepping parts of the defense to counter Ross's arguments for turning Bruce over to the Army or a coalition of private firms, which had covert ties to AIM.

Jenn had initially contacted Betty, but they had quickly involved her husband as well. Dr. Leonard "Lee" Sampson had turned out to be a valuable resource as both an expert in his field and as a witness to what had happened at Culver University since he had been the one to contact the General when he first suspected Betty had been in contact with Bruce. Once he met Bruce and they'd had a chance to talk, Lee knew he'd made a mistake, but no one understood how big of an error it was until the Army showed up the next morning. His actions had initially broken up his relationship with Betty for several months, but his contriteness and persistence had eventually won her back, and they had married the next year. The General had not been invited to the wedding.

"Do you really see Hulk as something separate from you?" asked Betty.

Bruce scratched the back of his head before he replied. "I can't exactly give you a yes-or-no answer on this because it's more complex than that and I really only have theories, not a definitive answer. It's like trying to hit a moving target because we're often in flux."

"Well, what's your theory then?" asked Lee.

Bruce looked over at Tony.

"It's up to you how much you want to share, Bud, but I don't think you'll find two more knowledgeable or empathetic people outside the tower," Tony reassured him.

Bruce took a long drink of ginger ale before plunging into the deep end of the theory pool. "We've gone through a number of theories from dissociative identity disorder to absorbed twins to chimerism to adaptive mutations and autism, and all of them seem to be lens for looking a different parts of the puzzle. In my head, Hulk is separate and he's always been there. I've explained him away as part of my imagination over the years and when the accident gave him a way to physically manifest, I didn't recognize him as being a part of me. As you know, I spent a good five years trying to destroy him and "cure" myself, before I accepted he was a part of me, one I might be able to use if I could control it. I kept the anger that triggered him close and ever-present just under the surface, so that he was effectively a weapon on a hair trigger. This worked well enough for a while, but then it started to wear us both down. The stress really took its toll, and I was starting to slip and blur. Something had to give, so with a little nudge from Stephen Strange, we quit fighting each other and started communicating. That was just after Sokovia last spring."

"Wow," Lee said as he nodded, "you think he's always been there?"

"Yes, I can remember him from as far back as my memories go. At least since I was in my crib," Bruce said. "Hulk says he was there from the beginning, but he didn't know he was separate from me."

"So you were unaware of him until the accident?" Betty asked.

"Right. As a kid growing up, I had imaginary friends who were as real to me as any sibling. I didn't know that wasn't 'normal.' My internal conversations as an adult have always been dialogues except for the five years or so after the accident. At that point I walled off or disassociated that part of myself because I thought it was the monster and I needed to destroy it, but I was really wrong about who Hulk is. The accident tore me apart down to a cellular level, but I tore myself apart mentally, emotionally, and psychically. We were both in a lot of pain and I actively suppressed him for years, so there was no real communication between us—just lots of unpleasantness and rejection. We feared each other and I dumped all of my anger and negativity on him. The physical transformation also overloads him with pain and sensory input. I didn't recognize him, and he couldn't communicate much less explain what had happened. We were both completely miserable."

"My God," said Betty, "you were locked into a death spiral."

"Yes, essentially we were. Natasha was the first one to really get through to Hulk since you had tried four years earlier," Bruce explained. "She connected with him and trusted him, but it took a bit of an intervention from Stephen Strange for me to grasp what I'd been doing and recognize whom I'd been fighting. Fortunately, Hulk is quite forgiving and was willing to work together. It's been much better for us ever since."

"You said years ago that after the transformation it was like an acid trip and you could only get a few impressions from it, but are you actually both in there. I thought I was finding you in him, but I feel like I may have met him."

Bruce smiled a little hesitantly, "You have. He remembers you, Betty. As he and I have been able to communicate again, memories for both of us have been coming back and filling in some of the gaps. We're both really happy for you and Lee."

"Thank you . . . to both of you," she said, clearly touched.

After a few quiet moments, Lee asked, "This is none of my business, but I'm really curious. Are you planning on reintegrating then? Is that something you want to have happen?"

"That's all right to ask," Bruce replied. "I was just talking about this subject with Tony on the plane this morning. I don't think Hulk and I have ever been unified, not completely, not in my memory or his, so no, I don't think integration is going to be a goal. What we're working on is communication and coordination. That's keeping us pretty occupied at the moment."

"Guys, I haven't even gotten to the biology questions," said Betty, "but it looks like they're showing people to the ballroom for the dinner."

Tony's phone pinged and he checked it, "Good, we'll be sitting together, so you can at least get a few of them asked, Betty." It was obvious Tony had been pulling a few strings.

The ballroom was just down a corridor from their current location, so they followed the other conference attendees down the hallway and checked in at the door. They all got some interesting looks. A few were for the statuesque couple with the very pregnant wife, but more were curious looks and whispers as people recognized Tony and then some surprised exclamations when a few finally recognized Bruce. Wearing an expensive designer suit didn't exactly help them blend in either.

Academics and scientists are an interesting bunch, Bruce thought to himself as he looked around, some of us are only at home when holed up in a lab while others, like Tony, are complete extroverts who love to strut and perform and show off their stuff. However, most of the people he was observing fell somewhere between the extremes. There was undeniably some tweed and frumpiness in evidence, but there were also smartly dressed couples and graduate students in their uncomfortable conservative suits that screamed, "Job interview!" He could easily pick out the biology and medical folks from the engineers because they tended to clump together in their groups; also, the engineers weren't getting buzzed and having to check their messages like the people with hospital connections were doing. Bruce wasn't sure how many physicists would be attending a conference on "Intersections of Science, Technology, and Ethics," but he had yet to see a familiar face from his field of study. Maybe it was just that the academic world had gone on without him?

As they were getting checked in at the ballroom door, a professional looking man with close-cropped hair and a conference lanyard reading "Dr. Myron P. Kim, Conf. Organizing Committee," approached them. "Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, let me welcome you to the conference. Since you missed getting checked in at the front desk, I've taken the liberty of bringing you your nametags. You should have received your programs electronically."

"It's good to see a familiar face, Myron," Bruce said as he stepped forward and shook the younger man's hand.

Dr. Kim beamed, "I'm so glad you remember me. It's been a long time."

"How could I forget one of my favorite lab assistants?" Bruce asked, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "Dr. Ross is right here, too," he said as he stepped back and made room.

After more greetings and handshakes, Dr. Kim guided the four of them to their seats at one of the front tables. Although the table was big enough for six to eight people, there were only four place cards. Bruce started to slip his lanyard in his pocket. He would just as soon not tip anybody off if they didn't recognize him from last fall's television coverage.

"Hey, Bruce, let me see your tag before you put it up. Bruce handed his nametag over to Tony who read it and frowned. "Why are you the 'Keynote Speaker' and I'm a 'Featured Speaker'?"

Bruce sighed, "Because you get to talk about what you're doing and say what you want, while I have the assignment of highlighting the conference theme while confessing my sins and presenting them as a cautionary tale for the rest of my peers and the broader scientific community. I am, after all, the poster boy for science gone wrong while you are still mostly the success story, my friend." That pretty well shut Tony up for all of fifteen seconds.

"Not feeling too bitter, are we?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Sorry, not much. It's just starting to seem a little more real now, and my nerves are kicking in," Bruce said, wringing his hands.

"Are you going to be okay?" Tony asked, looking concerned.

"Yah, time to put some food in me and feed the beast," Bruce said with a reassuring chuckle.

Betty and Lee were seated beside them and Tony brought out the distortion bubble device once more. As she got settled, Betty dropped her clutch purse and Bruce caught it before it hit the floor. He handed it back to her and she touched his hand. "My, are you running a fever, Bruce? May I?" she asked but didn't wait for an answer. He held patiently still as she placed the back of her hand on his forehead.

"Don't worry. I run pretty hot," he said as she looked at him with surprise on her face as the extent of his elevated temperature became apparent to her. "You were wondering about biology. Well, this is one of the perks of running on gamma." Lee was looking a little alarmed now. "It's okay. At this point the radiation is sequestered in my bones until it's needed," reassured Bruce. "I just have a higher idle than most people. Here, let me show you." Bruce pulled his phone out and opened up the Geiger–Müller app and showed her the charted collection of readings.

"Wow, this is neat," Betty said as she scanned through the screens. "Did one of you come up with it?"

"Tony did the hardware and I did the software on this one, but the graphics are from a college design team that won a competition Pepper had Stark Industries sponsor. The next model of StarkPhone will have it available, right Tony?"

"Yah, we managed to get it crammed on there," Tony said. "We could get you one to beta-test if you'd like. We've been distributing them in Japan to people effected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster after the tsunami."

"Oh, she'd like to have it all right," said Lee. "The whole lab has been obsessed with radiation levels since Betty was pregnant with Madeline and then one of the assistants the next year when she became pregnant. We joked they were going to need a nursery."

"Okay, guys, don't change the subject. So if you are running this hot, Bruce, and it's normal for you, what else is going on?" asked Betty.

"Where should I start?" Bruce genuinely felt a bit flummoxed since he hadn't panned on sharing details and possibly endangering others by making them targets. "There are a lot of things I can't talk about because it's just too dangerous, but Helen Cho's team will have some reports coming out on my metabolism and changes that occur during transformations soon. Uh, I think it's safe to say I have a form of chimerism that we're relatively certain comes from an absorbed twin, but we've not been able to do a full genetic testing sequence because we can't find a secure lab that I won't endanger by using it. You know what Sterns did with just one blood sample. Imagine what a military or industrial entity with more resources and a real agenda might do."

"You're absolutely right to be concerned, so I won't push you," she said. "Let's slow it down a moment. You have two sets of DNA? How did you find this out?"

Bruce smiled and shook his head sadly, "We're going to run out of time if I go into any details, but in a nutshell, since the accident, my body has been slowly healing the damage from the radiation over the years and there have been some 'upgrades' as well. I've had a couple of episodes that were scary. During one last summer I passed out and my temperature flared though I recovered and even improved afterward. While I was out cold and scaring the crap out of Nat and Tony, they called in Helen, and we did some pretty exciting scans and gathered a lot of data over the next 24 hours. Unfortunately, what we found out included potentially dangerous information, so we've not followed up on them. We did do one test for markers that indicated the chimerism, but before long I need to get a full set of DNA tests. Regrettably, any lab that has a cellular sample of mine is in danger from some truly nasty parties. That's probably about all I should say."

Betty had been listening and studying him, taking in what he was saying and trying to read between the lines. "There's something else important that you're not telling me. I know because I can tell when you're excited and trying not to show it."

Tony sighed, "Has his poker face always been this bad?"

"Yes," Betty said without hesitation.

Bruce let his head fall backwards onto his chair's back and laughed ruefully, "You know I am not supposed to know about this."

Tony shook his head, "What he could tell you, but is too humble and embarrassed to, is that he had some exceptionally good news from the urologist this morning."

"Tony—TMI!" Bruce moaned.

Betty and Lee looked at each other and both caught on at the same time. "You've had a fertility test?" Betty asked.

Bruce nodded. There was no point in denying it now. "Yah, a fertility test."

"Well?" asked Lee.

"I'm in good shape," said Bruce.

"That's an understatement," Tony quipped.

"So are you and Natasha going to try and have a baby?" Betty asked. "That's wonderful!"

Bruce grinned sheepishly, "Well, I'm not supposed to know, but . . ."

Tony placed his phone on the table and slid it over to Betty and Lee. "No try. Do," he said in his best Yoda imitation.

"Oh, my," said Betty, starting to tear up as she and Lee looked at the sonogram images.

"Congratulations," said Lee, "this is wonderful. It's truly, uh, odds defying and wonderful."

After a few moments, Betty switched back to her professional mode, "Well, now I see one reason why you want to get the genetic testing done."

"Yah, I was hoping to wait out the Agreements before doing it, but we need to know what we might be facing as soon as we can now. I've been told everything looks good, but who knows what my mutated genes have brought to the party?"

"I'll tell you what, let me look into this," she said and she took his hand and gave it a brief squeeze. "We'll need to get a sample with a cheek swab, but maybe a very small blood sample for comparison wouldn't hurt. If we're careful, I can do this through a third party lab and effectively hide it in plain sight. I might even be able to do it."

Bruce made a very pained face, "I'm serious. This is potentially very dangerous, and you've obviously been seen here with me."

"We could have a very public disagreement to throw people off," she suggested.

Tony put his hand over his mouth but couldn't prevent a snort from escaping, "Sorry, I have to say that the only difference between you and Nat on this point, Betty, is you asked Bruce first while Natasha would have just done it and explained it to him later."

Bruce shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "As much as she would hate to admit it, Tony pretty well has Natasha pegged. She doesn't think I'm a good enough actor to pull it off if I know what's happening."

"She knows you," Betty said. "She knows you're honest, and she doesn't expect you to lie or compromise and not be yourself. I respect that."

"I do, too," Bruce said. "I just don't enjoy being slapped and yelled at, even though I've done it a few times now to advance a common cause."

"I don't think any drama will be necessary, and the cat is out of the bag as far as getting you to react with a natural performance anyway," said Tony.

Bruce gave an audible sigh of relief. Explaining things to Adam would have been a pain if they had gone that route. "How quickly can we get a swab sample kit?" he asked Tony.

"Give Mal's people about 20 more minutes, and it will be in place in the men's restroom for you to use and Lee to pick up," Tony said.

"Your timing is perfect," Lee said, not batting an eye at his involvement in their little conspiracy. "Dinner is finally here and we should be finishing up with it and listening to the speaker's opening remarks."

They all nodded or smiled in agreement and waited as the servers efficiently set the plates and amenities on the table.

"So," Bruce asked, "now that you've seen Tony's pictures, did either of you bring pictures of your Madeline?" Bruce asked.

"We've both taken a phone full," laughed Lee.

"I want to see some pictures of Natasha and you," teased Betty. "Does she ever smile when she's not around you?"

"I can answer that," said Tony. "No, not unless she's working someone."

"Say that again, so I can use it as blackmail material," Bruce said.

They passed around cell phones and looked at pictures and added cell phone numbers in each other's contacts as they ate. Lee joked they were as bad as his graduate students, which inspired a round of selfies. Bruce and Tony both gushed over the pictures of a cherubic three year old with dark locks who apparently was fond of wearing blues and purples. Bruce noted her blue eyes and full lips favored Betty, while he could see Lee's features echoed in her nose and chin.

"Oh my gosh, this is you on a Harley," said Betty as she pointed out a set of photos on his phone.

"Yah, it was the first day trip the Oversight Committee let us take on our own. I borrowed Steve's bike and Nat picked up her new replacement for the electric one that got trashed in Seoul last spring chasing Ultron. We went to the Delaware Water Gap," Bruce explained.

"The foliage is beautiful, and ah, here's some smiles from both of you," Betty said.

"You bet, that electric is so unusual it drew people in every time we stopped to look at the scenery, so it was easy to get pictures taken. Nobody gave us a hard time. It was pretty nice. We hiked some of the upper trails too. What Bruce didn't add was that they'd purposely picked the least used and most secluded path to follow to its end where they had stripped down and made love in the afternoon sunshine. He had to pull himself out of the memory because it was one of his favorite reminiscences to lose himself in on a loop.

As they finished up dinner and desert was being served, Bruce checked his watch and quietly slipped out to use the men's room. A new text from Mal instructed him to use the far stall and retrieve the kit from behind the bowl and replace it. No one else was in the restroom and everything went as planned. The kit had two sample tubes so he left both a scraping and a blood sampling. As he returned, Lee passed him in the hall and gave him a quick smile.

As Bruce approached the ballroom doors, he heard someone call his name, so he cautiously turned to see who it was. He didn't recognize the thin angular man approaching from down the hall.

"Dr. Banner? Could I have a word with you?" he asked.

Bruce noticed the stripe on his official-looking lanyard that said, "Press," and frowned slightly. "Pardon me. I really need to get back inside and listen to the speaker."

"I'm Jack McGee and I work for the _Enquirer_. I couldn't help but notice you were sitting with Gen. Ross's daughter. Any comments?"

"We're former colleagues and old friends. Now, if you'll excuse me, it sounds like I'm missing all the good science jokes. Enjoy the conference, Mr. McGee."

Bruce waited until the door was closed behind him before he texted Lee to warn him about the reporter. He then took his seat between Betty and Tony just in time for the speaker, an enthusiastic woman in her sixties, to recognize Tony, himself, and an ebony-complexioned woman he didn't recognize as featured speakers for the next three nights. They each stood and waved in turn to acknowledge the enthusiastic applause. Although they apparently preferred to keep their distance, it seemed most people were looking forward to the actual presentations.

Lee quietly slipped back in from a side door and sat back down on Betty's left. He whispered to Bruce, "The reporter is still out there. You might want to leave by the side door." Bruce gave him a thumbs-up and nodded his thanks.

As the speaker was winding down, Tony touched his arm and pointed to his watch. They had about fifteen minutes before they were supposed to meet Joseph at the circle drive, so they quietly stood and slipped out the side door. Betty had followed them out while Lee had stayed at the table.

She took Bruce's left hand in hers and held it. "I've missed you, but I'm so happy to see how well you're doing now," she said.

"And I'm really happy you and Lee have made a good life together. Thank you for everything. You've been there when I've needed you most, and you've stood by me when I've been at my worst." He brought her hand to his lips and lightly kissed her fingers.

As he let her hand go, Betty stepped in as close as her pregnant belly would allow and whispered, "Next time, we're going to talk about your black out episodes and the pluripotent cell clusters, so be ready to do some kickass science once this Agreements shit is over. Lee and Nat can watch the kids."

Bruce almost snorted, but managed to bite his lower lip and just smirk. "Take care. I'll wait to hear from you about the other 'stuff'."

"Yes, you will," she said and disappeared back into the ballroom.

"Let's move it, you smooth operator. We'll have to grab the coats at the front hat-check," Tony said.

"You told her, didn't you?" Bruce said.

"Someone had to. We are going to get out from under the Agreements at some point, and we need her on our team." Bruce nodded his head in acknowledgement. It complicated things, but there was no one better in her field of study.

For once they managed to get their coats and exit the building as planned, and they jogged up to the top of the hill and the circle drive. Joseph was already waiting for them and he stood in front of the behemoth chatting with a campus police officer. "Neither of you lost a shoe or anything?" he boomed out with a laugh.

"No shoes lost. No hearts broken that weren't that way before," said Bruce.

"Good," the large man replied as he opened the Hummer's back door for them, "because you have a Skype date, and I have money down on you getting a yes out of that beautiful baby-mama, Doc."

Bruce wasn't sure if he should laugh at that or cry. Tony was already rolling on his side on the seat laughing when Bruce stepped into the vehicle, so Bruce let it slide and listened to Adam checking off a list of baby names in his head.

"Adam Anthony . . . not bad. Bruce Lee . . . now that has an interesting sound . . ."

 **End Notes:**

I hope I've done sweet, strong, wonderful Betty a little justice here. I have always been saddened at the way she was dropped out of the MCU, but I wanted to give her a happier fate and the possibility of a return at some point. She's a great character who deserved better.

This chapter is also for John who really wanted Doc Sampson to show up. I know Lee is no Doc Sampson post gamma exposure, but I hope I've written a solid guy who could come back from making some mistakes, learn from them, and earn back Betty's trust and eventually her love as well.

Well, it's time for a two-week break, but I won't be far. Please let me know what you think. I live for the comments-I really do!

When we get back, the looooooooog awaited Skype conversation. Is Bruce really the last to know? Will the ring get there? Is the apartment still overrun with Scott's little buddies? Did they get the spider? Oh, will we even make it to Nat's answer? We'll have to find out in two weeks!


	39. Chapter 39

Summary: The "Spider Problem" gets mostly solved with help from some friends of all sizes.

Notes: Thank you for your patience, everyone! Things are settling out health-wise as I'm getting used to the medications. I may not be able to keep up with a weekly publishing schedule, but I will continue plugging away. I didn't quite get us to the Skype session this week, but we had to take care of that freaking spider before it further spilled the beans to the world. My thanks to the wonderful Autumn_Froste who has really talked me through the rough spots on this. Any stupid typos in the last third are all mine.

39: The Spider, the Ants, and the Android

Natasha hadn't been able to spend a great deal of time working with Scott Lang since Sam Wilson had recruited the affable Californian, but he was clearly eager to be a part of the team and still a little in awe of his colleagues. While evaluating him, she'd been the one who dug through his past, including his "activist" record that had landed him on the wrong side of the law. Natasha certainly admired his principles, but he was the last person she would want to recruit for actual face-to-face work as an operative. He made Bruce with his unguarded, honest expressions seem positively stoical by comparison. Unfortunately, what was on Scott's mind was usually out of his mouth until he calmed down and focused on an assignment. That's when his professional skills took over and his confidence kicked in. Since Hank Pym had hung up the Ant-Man suit decades ago, no one but Scott could do what he did with the right resources and "associates" at his call. To be honest, Natasha was quite relieved to see Scott arrive in _Avengers Quinjet 3_ on the tower's landing pad, promptly at 3:30pm.

A couple of techs were helping Scott unload three lantern-shaped containers onto a transport cart as Natasha walked up the ramp. "Hi, Ms. Romanoff, this is so cool. I've only seen this place in the dark at the New Year's party. My God, there's a beachfront worth of glass in this building."

"Scott, please call me _Natasha_ or _Nat_. We're colleagues, remember, so it's perfectly okay," she said with a smile as she extended her hand.

"Oh, right, right," he said shaking her hand with more enthusiasm than was required. "Hey, I brought reinforcements just in case."

Since the ant colonies had just been offloaded, Natasha looked past Scott's shoulder to the cockpit where a tall slim figure in a gray wool suit was bent over the control panel, adjusting the jet's system down to idle. "Vision!"

"I hope you don't mind my tagging along with Scott," the red and greenish-skinned android said stepping forward.

"Not at all," Natasha said as she took both of his extended hands in hers.

As he clasped her hands, the android's eyes opened wide, and he stepped back a half step to look at her with his head slightly tilted. "I believe it's proper to offer congratulations to you and Bruce," he said with an amazed smile growing on his face.

"Thank you," she said. "We'll talk later, okay?" Natasha had wondered how Vision might react when he found out they were expecting, but she had thought Bruce and she would have had a chance to talk about it first. Much as Ultron had been Tony's creation, Vision had been Bruce's. From his work with Helen on the Cradle to his software interface design and techno-organic integration techniques, some of which took almost a decade to develop and parts of which were done on the fly, Bruce's creative stamp, his "vision" ran deep in the android. Perhaps because Tony had expected to find more of his beloved JARVIS in the android, he'd remained a distant when that hadn't happened. Bruce had certainly been fond of JARVIS, but by the time he had made it back to the tower last July, the Vision had been residing at the Avengers compound for a few months and was making an independent life for himself. It had been maybe two days after Bruce and Natasha had moved into their new expanded suite before the first email arrived just ahead of the fruit basket. Bruce had smirked and smiled all the way through the email before he passed his new Starkphone over for Natasha to read.

Dr. Banner (and Ms. Romanoff):

I hope this message finds you well, and you are settling into your new apartment at the tower. I am exceedingly glad that negotiations have proven successful and you are indeed home once more.

As Ms. Romanoff knows, I am finding myself busy here training at the compound and working with colleagues to become part of the team. I have been busy "learning the ropes," but if it would not be too much of a bother, I hope you would consider having an electronic conversation with me. Mr. Stark finds himself quite busy, and I often have questions that I would like to discuss, which perplex Dr. Selvig and Captain Rogers.

Natasha raised an eyebrow and looked up quizzically at Bruce. He'd pressed his lips together to keep from chuckling and waved his hand for her to go on reading.

I will of course understand if you are too busy, but I promise I would not take up more of your time than necessary.

Sincerely yours,

Vision

P.S. Please accept the apartment-warming gift scheduled for delivery this afternoon. Captain Rogers assures me neither of you are allergic to the components.

Natasha pictured Steve and Vision sitting down in the modern commons area at the compound and ordering the fruit basket over the Internet. She was sure Wanda probably helped, too, because it wasn't all apples, pears, and peaches. Bruce had chuckled about the avocados—some inside joke with Steve she found out later—before he quickly sent a reply and a thank you back to Vision.

That had been the start of a rather epic conversation that went back and forth across electronic formats like a slow-motion chess match one day and a game of Ping-Pong the next. The longest they'd gone between messages was a week, but they'd usually sent a few texts back and forth every couple of days unless something really sparked their imaginations. They did talk mostly about science and philosophy, but the cultural topics often involved other team members and friends. Eventually, most of the people they knew had been pulled into the meatballs vs. meatloaf debate (still an ongoing discussion at the compound that had even pulled in a few vegetarians), and the perpetual "Why is this funny?" thread that sometimes Bruce (and Steve and Erik) were at a loss to explain. When Natasha was at the compound, she and Sam were usually the ones who had to field those questions after everyone else was too exasperated or had given up, often out of embarrassment.

Natasha's personal favorite happened before Christmas and just after the mistletoe had been hung in some prominent spots around the compound before all the Thanksgiving leftovers has been cleared out of the refrigerator. Natasha and Bruce had been spending a quiet evening on the couch with first flurry of snow blowing past the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city. She was finishing a report, and he had been reading an article on nanotube storage properties that Tony had shoved at him earlier in the day before taking off for the weekend. Bruce's phone had pinged as a text from Vision arrived. After a few exchanges, a couple of which left Bruce shaking his head and drumming his fingers while waiting for a reply, Bruce finally looked up. "If I asked you to be my test subject in a small experiment, would you be willing?"

"That depends on what it is you're testing."

"Kissing technique," Bruce said with a perfectly straight face.

"Oh, so you're going to try something out on me, and I give you feedback?"

"Yah, basically."

"All right, what are my choices?" she asked as she sent off the report she'd just finished and set down her tablet.

"Okay, pretend we're under the mistletoe," Bruce said.

"Got it."

"On average, would you be more likely to initiate a kiss if people were around, like say at a party, or if it were quiet and just the two of us?"

"Oh, that's a good question." Natasha bit her lip. "A year ago, I'd have waited till we were by ourselves because it would have surprised you, but now we're both pretty comfortable with a small public display of affection. I wouldn't necessarily need the excuse of the mistletoe either."

"Exactly!" said Bruce. "Sam seems to think a public hit and run is better than working up to it."

Natasha laughed, "Sam, like Tony, is an extrovert, so, yes, he's going to take that approach. Are you two trying to give Vis advice again?"

"Well, it started out as explaining what the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe was for and kind of escalated from there."

"Poor, Wanda!" Natasha shook her head and laughed ruefully. "Poor Vis! Just leave him alone and they'll do fine."

Bruce sent off one last text and shut his phone off. "I told him as much."

"So you said this was about technique, but that question was really about timing." She had scooted closer to Bruce on the couch now that the distractions were gone.

"Well, you know I'm into planning so it all just looks like good timing, but I did recommend a few movies, too," he said.

"Oh, so you had this all planned out, too. That way it looked spontaneous," she teased as she swung her leg over his so she was straddling Bruce's lap.

"Right, but I'm getting much more comfortable following my instincts with you," he said, looking up at her as his hands slid up her thighs and under her shirt.

Natasha bit her lower lip and watched as he breathed deeply and raised her shirt so he could kiss her stomach. He slid his hands up along her waist and back, pulling her closer. Bruce looked up at her and grinned as he mouthed her stomach until she squirmed.

"Stop it! You're tickling me on purpose," she laughed, pulling her elbows in for protection.

Bruce blew a quick raspberry on her skin, "Aww, that wasn't too much torture was it?" He wrapped his warm arms around her and hugged her close, resting his cheek against her.

Natasha relaxed into his embrace, running her hands through his dark curls. "So Vis is maybe going to kiss Wanda under the mistletoe?"

"That would appear to be the plan."

"I've warned Sam about egging him on before."

"Don't worry, they'll be okay. Vis cares for her, and she cares for him. Even someone as socially tone deaf as I am can see that when they're together," Bruce said.

"Well, that makes maybe twice that you've seen them in the same place."

"And that was enough to see how they look at each other. She's been good for him and he's not afraid of her."

"But how far can this go?" Natasha pushed.

"That's up to them. I just want them both to be happy and have a healthy relationship, whatever that looks like."

"You're right," she hugged him close before shifting back to sit with her weight over his knees. "I can't fault either of them for finding comfort and happiness where they can."

Bruce's smile turned a bit sad, "Just please don't bring it up with Tony." Natasha looked at him with some puzzlement. "He's having a few issues still with carrying over his expectations for JARVIS when they shouldn't really apply to Vision. He's still somewhat in denial, but I'm pretty certain it's mostly prolonged grief. I've tried to talk to him about it, but he either brushes it off or doesn't respond. He's not really moved on or bonded with Friday either."

"Wow," she said with a sigh. "He hides the downside so well it's hard to see he's struggling when I'm not around him day to day. I'll make a point of talking to Rhodey and Pepper about this." She didn't add that she'd long since taken on Friday herself, but she suspected Bruce was onto them but just not saying anything . . . yet. "Keep an eye on him, Love. It's the time between emergencies when people dwell on what's hurting them."

"And holidays. I am trying to keep an eye on him. I wish he would let go of the past and take more joy or at least some interest in who is still here and does need him," Bruce mused.

"He will. It may take a Hulk-level kick in his iron pants, but we'll get him there." She'd ruffled Bruce's hair and they'd worked on "technique" after that as they kissed and then moved the tickling to the bedroom.

It had taken a while to follow up with the others, but Pepper and Happy had arranged schedules to spend more time in New York, and Rhodey had insisted on War Machine upgrades that Tony and he field-tested on a regular basis. Having people close around the holidays seemed to have finally done the trick, but it had taken a pretty heated discussion with Bruce to get Tony to finally start talking to Vision rather than ordering him around or ignoring him. Natasha had been on the garage level bringing up a couple of sacks of groceries from a specialty market when the "discussion" started, but Friday had immediately linked her into the audio via her ear piece when Bruce's voice had reached a sustained level, roughly half way up the elevator ride to their apartment. She dropped the groceries bags outside the elevator and she raced for the lab. Natasha slowed down as she approached the glass-walled section and picked one of her spots to stay out of sight and at the ready with a decent view of the lab below. It was easy to see from the bright gold holographic display that Tony had dug up JARVIS' schematics. Bruce's agitated tenor could be heard without any audio from Friday necessary as he stalked his friend around the open lab area, " _Dammit, Tony, it's like your spouse has died in childbirth and you've abandon the child. He's not JARVIS, but he needs you. You've moped around for over six months now. No one expects you to forget J. We just need you among the living. We all do_."

Tony had finally stopped circling the hologram and sat down at one of the lab benches. Natasha breathed a small sigh of relief. Making Bruce chase him was bringing out some instincts that were testing Bruce's control, but so far he seemed to be keeping it together. As she took a better look, Natasha decided she had never seen Tony this tired unless he was tracking down missing Science Bros or defending the planet. He looked miserable and haunted.

"Bruce, I've tried but I don't know how anymore," Tony said in a defeated voice. He rested his elbow on the table and leaned his cheek against his fist.

She could see Bruce was working hard to calm his breathing, but he still seemed to have the upper hand. He placed a tentative right arm around his friend's shoulder—something that was a challenge for him to do, especially in this state. "With Vision it's not that hard. Start a chess game or throw out a philosophy question. He's fascinated with clothing right now. Talk to him about style and design before Sam convinces him retro-grunge is a thing."

Tony turned his head slowly to look up at Bruce, "So help me, Banner, if you are making this up."

Bruce shook his head, looking quite serious. "No. I kind of wish I were. I'm out of my depth here. Natasha pretty much has to color code my Geranimals and Underoos."

Tony shook his head dramatically, "Bro, you are so dating yourself with that reference."

Bruce shrugged, "Well, you got it didn't you?" His innocent look, which didn't match the twinkle in his eyes, dared Tony not to laugh.

Tony continued to shake his head, but his expression had softened as the corner of his mouth edged up. "I have so fucked this up, Bruce," he sighed. "Dinner and a movie aren't going to fix it."

"We've all fucked up, man, but this doesn't have to stay that way." He patted Tony's shoulder and moved around to take a seat across the table from his friend with his back to Natasha. She could see Bruce had taken his glasses off, and she knew he was cleaning them to keep his hands busy and continue to calm himself down. "Look, I hated Hulk for years. I tried to kill or purge him. Whatever it took, I just wanted rid of him. You know I banged my head against that wall until there wasn't much left to bang. But, even after I'd done all that to him, he still forgave me. No questions asked."

Tony looked up and studied Bruce. Natasha could see there were plenty of questions running through his head, "Neither of us had the best role models when it came to this. I'm making the same damn mistakes my old man made."

"Vision just wants a little of your time and attention. Trust me, this time it's not going to be that hard." Bruce got up from the bench, "The offer still stands: Vision and Wanda will be here at 7:00pm. The movie starts at 9:00pm. I know Pepper is out of town and your schedule is clear and your hair doesn't need washing."

Tony took a deep breath and straightened his back and shoulders. "Red or white?"

"Red. We're doing meatballs and cabbage rolls, so pick something that will stand up to those."

"What, no meatloaf? I thought it was winning?" Tony asked with raised eyebrows.

"Hey, not in our kitchen tonight," Bruce said with a grin. "I am going to be outnumbered by two lovely women who were not raised in the Midwestern U.S. The only thing they're trusting me with is the potatoes and a tossed salad if I'm lucky."

"What did you say the movie was?"

" _The Greatest Show on Earth_ , 1952: murder mystery, clowns, elephants, and a really cool train wreck."

"Hey, the train wreck clinches the deal." Tony hesitated a moment, "Do you think Vision would like seeing the markup specs on Rhodey's new palm repulser?"

"I think that's a pretty safe bet," Bruce said as he headed up the steps to his lab.

Natasha was waiting for him and still watching Tony as he shutdown the holographic display. "I'm glad he put it away and didn't delete it."

Bruce followed her gaze and nodded, "Yah, I'd have pulled it out of the trash folder later if he had."

"Come here," she said, and she held her arms open and hugged Bruce as he stepped into her embrace. "You did good, Doc."

"Was that a hard enough kick in the pants?"

"For a one-person intervention, yah, I think it was a pretty decent kick in the pants."

"Good, because I split out the seems on my shirt under the lab coat."

"What am I going to do with you?" she laughed, looking up at him and brushing the curls back from his forehead.

"It would have been worse, but he was there steadying me. He knew it was important."

She didn't have to ask who "he" was. "We are a team. I think he'll support you as much as you'll trust him. Next time, give me a heads, okay?"

He nodded and gave her a lopsided smile, "Promise," as he traced an X over his heart.

"Now, we better go pick up the produce I left out in the hall before some random tech person steps on my tomatoes, peppers, and cabbages."

((o))

Natasha watched Vis walk down the hall and promised herself that there weren't going to be any more abandonment issues on her watch. Tony still wasn't the most comfortable of mentors, but at least the two now communicated regularly.

Scott had pulled out what looked like a metal briefcase from the quinjet's storage. "Anything else to carry in?" she asked.

"No, this is it. So, congratulations are in order? Not to be nosy, but are you and Dr. Banner tying the knot?"

"Well, we're sort of trying to keep a lid on it, but we're expecting and . . . Bruce doesn't know yet," she added with her most charming smile possible.

"Oh, wow, so you just found out? How did Vis know?"

"He probably detected a second heartbeat."

"Right. Wow, this is really exciting. I don't know what I would do without Cassie. When Maggie and I had her, that was definitely the happiest day of my life. Bruce is going to be so excited."

She nodded, "Yes, I'm sure he will be, Scott. Did you have a chance to go over the briefing?"

"Yah, so someone managed to slip this thing in disguised as a piece of old jewelry. That was pretty clever."

"Yah, it was right when Bruce went missing, and we were all scattered between here and the new Avengers Complex as it opened, so apparently it came in with the mail from the front desk. No explosives found. As you saw, Tony even x-rayed it, and when we opened it up, both of us looked at it briefly in the case and didn't notice anything unusual."

"The report said it's probably somewhere in the commons area or at least on that floor," he noted.

"Right, let's head down there," she said as she led the way to the elevator. "Nick Fury is here. Have you had the chance to meet him before, Scott?"

"Uh, no, I've heard a lot about him from Sam and Steve though. Is Tony around?"

"No, he's in Cincinnati with Bruce at a science and ethics conference. Clint is there too, helping out with security. Why, were you hoping to talk to Tony?"

"No, it just makes me a little nervous being in _his_ tower without him being here. Have you ever met Hank Pym?"

"Yes, I have had that honor, but it's been a few years ago."

"Hank was not in favor of me working with much less joining the Avengers because of his issues with Tony's dad."

"That's understandable; it was a pretty public falling out, at least within S.H.I.E.L.D. It turned out Hank was right, but Howard wasn't the problem."

"Old suspicions die hard, especially when they probably did consider each other friends," Scott mused.

Natasha nodded, "Well, you'll find Tony is not exactly like his father. He does have strong opinions. Most people would agree that he is easier to take in small doses. But, he's also a very kind and thoughtful person and the most loyal of friends."

"Is he going to mind my being here?" Scott asked a bit sheepishly. "I mean, I have a record and a reputation."

"You're an Avenger, Scott. The only reputation we're concerned about is that you keep your record of successes intact and find this thing before it does any further damage."

"I think I can do that," he said with a more comfortable smile.

They had arrived at the commons area where Nick had the interns lined up and Pepper was explaining to them what a great team-building exercise this had been. Even though all they'd found was loose change, five unclaimed Stark-pads, a motorcycle key, and a World War Two "mini" Valor Medal that either belonged to Steve or one of his buddies, Pepper handed out gift cards from the neighborhood business coalition, which seemed to please everyone. Pepper smiled and briefly said hello to Scott as she herded the interns toward the elevator. That's when one of them recognized Scott and squealed, "Ant-Man! My God, it's Ant-Man!" After a few minutes of signing cards and taking selfies in front of the elevator with an embarrassed, yet completely thrilled Scott, Pepper finally had the flock of interns back on track and headed toward the lobby.

Natasha had ducked back into the kitchen to get a glass of water and found Vision watching Scott's besiegement with an amused smile on his face. "Well, no need to explain why this is funny?" she asked.

"Not at all," he said. "Scott yearns for recognition and acceptance, so finding out he has 'groupies' at the tower both embarrasses and pleases him. He should enjoy this."

"Let's just be glad neither Sam or Clint was here to catch that on their phones or it would already be on the Internet and going viral."

"Why, wouldn't Scott like that as well?" Vision asked.

"There is such a thing as too much 'adulation'," Natasha explained. "This was a nice ego boost. Posting it for the world to see would probably be too much."

"Tony wouldn't mind it," the android noted.

"Tony is used to it, so it wouldn't be as special for him to have that happen. He sort of expects to be recognized, especially in his own building. I doubt Scott has had this happen before."

Vision nodded and stroked his chin, a gesture she'd seen Bruce make many, many times, "Perhaps we should have recorded it for him?"

"Don't worry, Friday has every angle in the suite covered while we look for the spider. We can have her pull it up later if Scott wants it," she said.

As the elevator door closed, Nick cleared his throat, "Well, Mr. Lang, it's a pleasure. Let's see if you can earn some of that hero worship."

Scott blushed red but set up his equipment like the professional he was. Natasha noted there was now a layout of the floor on all of the larger monitors throughout the suite. She joined Nick to look at his pad. They had just over an hour before the "spider" started transmitting again. Scott, now in his suit minus the helmet, joined them. "Well, Scott, I see you already met Nick. What are your thoughts as far as strategy goes?" she asked.

"I was looking at the transmission points. Since they were all from the periphery sections with windows, I thought we could keep this simple and make a double line of defense with crazies forming the outer parameter about five feet in and the bullet ants at about ten. The bullets can also climb the walls and search up high as well. The carpenters will keep track of things from the air just in case this spider thing is hiding higher up. That way, when the spider shows up, we'll have everyone on alert, and we'll swarm it as soon as possible after we've spotted it."

"Before you swarm it, we need to find out who is receiving the data it transmits. Once we get a bead on the receiving end, swarm away," Nick said.

"So, once we've swarmed it, any ideas about how we contain it so it doesn't continue to transmit, yet at the same time leave it whole enough to study?" Natasha asked. "I think we're all out of lead-lined cookie jars."

"I have a containment module," said Pepper returning from the direction of the labs with a four-inch squared metallic cube. "Tony says this should hold the critter and block any transmissions from coming in to it or going out."

"Speaking of in-coming transmissions," Vision spoke up, "any theories on who is behind this infiltration?"

Nick shook his head, "Nothing solid, but considering where it's been—namely on this floor in the commons area—they seem to be interested in what the people who use this area might be doing or saying. This is where Avengers and their friends talk informally and unguarded."

"Loose lips sink ships?" asked Scott.

"Maybe not ships, but industrial secrets, technological breakthroughs, stock market tips, clues about geopolitical alliances, or we could be completely over thinking this." Nick snorted, "Maybe they're interested in information that's more of a personal nature."

"Blackmail?" Natasha said with a raised eyebrow.

Happy laughed, "How about gossip? Jameson at the _Bugle_ or Bushkin at the _Daily Globe_ would die to have a fly or a spider on the wall here and that's just local papers in the city."

Natasha and Nick both looked at each other, gears turning at light speed.

"Oh, holy crap!" exclaimed Pepper. "Remember the details getting leaked about the Holiday Party decorations and the guest list? We thought it was someone working for the caterer."

Natasha shook her head in disgust. "It's schedule even fits the news cycle. That might also explain why Steve has run into paparazzi almost every time he's visiting and leaves the tower to go jogging. He uses the kitchen here and not in his suite, so he gets spotted and they know to set a watch at the doors."

"Well," said Nick, "it could be a lot worse than this, but a bug is still a bug. There is no guarantee that all of the leaked information has been as harmless as who got coal in a stocking. Keep in mind, if this is an independent contractor, the newspapers might not be his or her only buyer."

"Might I suggest," said Vision, "that I take the far periphery and, once we have established the angle for the device's transmission, apprehend whomever is making contact to collect its data."

"I just love it when a plan comes together!" Scott said as he rubbed his gloved hands dramatically.

Nick glowered a bit, but Natasha laughed. "Where do you want us while you and your gals work, Scott?"

"Well, how about the kitchen? The floor is a hard surface, and you can get on the barstools if you're not comfortable with the ants. As long as you're still and don't panic, they should be fine. I just don't want any of you freaking out."

"If you don't mind," said Pepper, "I need to take care of a few things, so I will go take care of them. Happy, I'm going to need a hand if Natasha can spare you."

"Aw, I wanted to see the cute ants do their thing and Scott shrink, but if you're going to insist, Pepper," he said with a mock protest.

"Go!" ordered Natasha. The fewer big feet stomping around the better in her opinion. "I'll have Friday keep you posted."

The three lantern-like containers were on the floor at the far side of the kitchen and dining area. At the half-hour mark, Scott opened the first container with the reddish-hued "crazy" ants. These were the most numerous colony, and they would handle most of the footwork on the ground. Scott concentrated and gave them instructions as they poured out and formed steams and fanned out in different directions. Nick and Vision looked on from the barstools while Natasha had found a vantage point on the corner of the kitchen counter to perch. She was amazed at the speed with which they covered the distance from one end of the large open floor plan to the other. "Okay, eyes and ears are in position," Scott said before he opened the second container and much larger and darker ants flowed out. "These are the bullets," he explained. "They have a very painful sting, but I brought them because they're big enough to cover territory fast and, I hope, overpower the spider." The bigger ants headed out toward the middle to form an inner arc with the crazies on the outside. Some of the bullets also climbed the open beams to scout out the high ground and light fixtures.

Natasha watched the bullet ants in the exposed support structures and lighting above their heads. Since the interns had already searched the actual floor and furniture, she was hoping the bigger ants might flush the spider out, but there was no such luck just yet. The sun was in the west and backlit most of the living room space, but it wasn't due to set for over a half hour. Scott let out the final colony of ants, the flying carpenters, and checked his coms one last time as the queens stretched and then took to the air, looking like living dust motes in the evening sun.

"By the way, Scott," Natasha asked, "how do you get this many carpenter queens together at once?"

Scott laughed, "That, my friend, is a Pym family secret that neither Hank nor Hope would let me share even if I understood it, but they've had a lot of time to cultivate that trait. I'm just lucky they let me borrow the wee beauties."

"Okay, tricks of the trade," she said with a smirk. That's what she'd expected since she had recently taken the time to study up on entomology. As they ticked down to a few minutes till 5:00pm, Friday flashed silent updates on the large monitors and Nick ran the scanning routine from the pad in his hands. The cube was opened and at the ready in front of him. Vision looked composed as he watched the monitors and the ants. Natasha gave Scott a thumbs-up, and he put his helmet on and promptly shrunk out of sight. In a few seconds, he flew past her on his mount to circle the room.

"Dang, that is one big television screen," Scott remarked over his com as they flew past the theater-rivaling screen. "Nothing yet from up here."

"Nothing here either," Natasha said, almost slipping into a whisper as she scanned the ceiling again.

The next moment, Friday's sensors flashed, as the Interface detected movement among the ceiling trusses in the uppermost angle of the living room section. "Stay still," Natasha said, more to remind herself than anyone. "Let this thing come to us and ping its contact first, guys. We have to get the human end of this, too. Scott, what does it look like?"

Scott flew above the beam and his ant hovered there before circling to make another pass. "It's not as sparkly as the pictures, but it looks like a spider with a very small satellite dish on its butt, well, abdomen. Kind of steampunk meets arachnid. It doesn't move quite like a real spider, but it's creepy enough." The dot on the monitor continued to move along the beam that roughly divided the living room area from the dining end of the kitchen, but they couldn't see it from below.

Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha saw Vision's gray wool suite and silk shirt ripple and change into his uniform. "Vision, go ahead and have a look at it, but don't get between it and the windows." He silently rose up to just above the beam's level and well to the side to avoid blocking the window. He then shifted to the rear of it to make the line of transmission easier to follow. As the spider got to a clear spot at the intersection with a cross girder, it stopped.

"Heads up," said Scott. "It's positioning itself, and it looks like it's going to do something."

Friday's voice chimed in, "It's powering up. Data burst transmission in three . . . two . . . one . . ."

They all watched as an orange-yellow beam finer than a laser pointer's manifested from above the girder and shot toward a neighboring building at a downward angle. "I have it," said Vision and he was gone before Natasha could blink.

"Shut it down, Scott," she said.

"Whoo-hoo! I thought you were never going to ask," Scott enthused. The bullet ants had lined up along the beam in fluid ranks across it, and they now advanced from both ends. Scott with his winged partner and other carpenter ants buzzed the spider and forced it to move and break contact to end the transmission. Up till then, the spider had ignored the ants, but now it shifted itself to a more upright position with its weight on its back four legs and started waving its other four legs in a much more aggressive manner to fend off the ants on both sides. Scott made several passes, avoiding the spider's flailing legs, but neither he nor the rest of his allies seemed to be able to get past its defenses. "Hey, would you have some thread or dental floss handy, Natasha?" he asked.

"Would medical sutures work?" she offered.

"Even better," he said. "I just need to knock it off so everyone on the floor can gang up on it.

Natasha pulled the medical kit from the cabinet beside the sink and opened up the plastic box. She unwrapped a six-inch suture with its attached needle and held it draped across her palm for him. Scott's ant and another one landed there. "Watch that needle," she warned.

"No problem. It's perfect," he reassured her, and they quickly took off.

Natasha looked across the room at Nick, "Are you ready?"

He held up the cube, which had the base opened now. "Stark lined this with something sticky. All I need to do is get the device inside and it should be immobilized," said Nick.

It was hard to tell from her angle, but Natasha thought Scott might be too low as they pulled up steeply. At the last second the two fliers skimmed up the side of the girder then pulled the line taunt to sweep the top as they popped over the edge. "Why you stupid, stubborn spider," Scott swore as the two carpenter ants strained to pull the mechanical beast over the edge. Finally sensing an opening, the bullet ants jumped on and pushed as the monstrosity began to slip and flail toward the edge. The ants used their mandibles to pull at the anchoring legs until the metal claws lost their purchase and the whole mass of ants and spider lunged over the edge in a dark scuffling blob of legs and bodies. Scott cheered and flew free along with the other carpenter ants that had joined the effort. As the mass hit the floor with a small, sickening thud, the brownish red crazy ants swarmed it. Natasha knew there was no way all of the fallen bullet ants survived the plunge to the floor, but a surprising number crawled out of the lumpy mass of red and brown covering the spider. Eventually, the smaller ants were the only things still moving. Nick and she carefully approached the living mound. "Set the container down close to them and they'll load it up," instructed Scott from somewhere near her shoulder.

"Warn them the inside is sticky, so they don't get trapped in there, too," Natasha said.

"Oh, that is nasty," said Scott.

Nick set the containment cube down as instructed and the ants worked together to dump the still twitching spider into the cube. "Well, thank you," said Nick as the last ant cleared the cube and he picked the container up and sealed it shut.

"Thank you, Scott and friends," Natasha breathed with a sigh. "Would the girls like a piece of fruit or something to celebrate?"

Scott returned to normal size beside her. "Sorry, didn't mean to give you a start. Sadly, they like white bread. I, on the other hand, will take the fruit."

"No problem. Let me get you a glass of O.J.," she offered. "Say, where is Vision?"

Nick laughed, "Look out the window."

Natasha and Scott turned to see Vision approaching with someone in a set of coveralls dangling from his grip. He phased through the window and into the kitchen where he dumped the figure on the floor. Vision set down a piece of equipment that appeared to be a receiver attached to an external drive. Natasha noted he took much more care depositing with the equipment than the person.

"Who's your friend?" Natasha asked.

Vision looked disgusted, "Underneath the maintenance worker façade, you might recognize Mr. Rex Titian, the former feature writer and cultural critic for the _Daily Globe_."

"The one who faked his sources and caused a scandal at the paper about a year ago?" Natasha asked.

"The same one who wrote several fact-devoid pieces on Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts and a few on Captain Rogers as well," Vision concluded.

Nick looked the man over as he sat sullenly on the floor in the ill-fitting gray dungarees with the name "Carl" embroidered in red on the shoulder. "So, what do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Titian?"

"Nothing, I know nothing, so you won't get anything out of me," Titian said in a high-pitched voice. Natasha compared his current disheveled state with the well-tailored and quaffed appearance she remembered from the paper's website and barely recognized the two as being the same person. Either he was quite good at disguise or he truly had fallen on desperate times.

"Really?" Nick said as he gestured to the equipment on the counter. "Where did you come by this?"

"Some tall guy in an expensive suit with an odd European accent. I don't have to tell you anything," he said as he pulled his knees up under him. "They'll kill me if I do."

"Well, Mr. Titian, at the least you're guilty of corporate espionage and perhaps trading in government secrets. If you cooperate, you're looking at time in a nice federal prison. If you don't, I imagine it will be much less pleasant," Nick said in a flat tone.

"I don't know," Natasha said in a speculative voice. "We've pretty much got what we need with the equipment. We could let him go and leave it up to his friends to deal with him."

That got a reaction from Titian who backed closer to the wall, shaking his head. "No, that wouldn't be good."

Natasha nodded to Nick and they slipped around the corner to talk. "Can S.H.I.E.L.D. take him?" she asked. "He'll crack pretty quickly, but I'm not sure he'll have nearly as much useful information as that hard drive."

Nick chuckled, "I'll make a call. He may be able to connect some dots for us. In the meantime, let's get him down stairs. It's rather awkward having him on the kitchen floor."

In a few minutes, Nick gave them a thumbs up and Vision and he escorted Titian down to the garage for transport. While all this was happening, Scott had rewarded his herds and they'd returned to their containers. He'd already taken off his suit and put it away. Natasha handed him the promised glass of orange juice, and he quaffed it down quickly. "Pepper just texted me. We have pizzas on the way up. I hope you like New York style," Natasha said.

"I like anything that's called pizza," he said with a grin. She noted Scott seemed much more relaxed now.

"You do good work, Scott. You thought on your feet and your girls did great. I hope you didn't lose many of them."

"Just a few bullets and crazies from the fall. They're very stoic about it because there are so many of them and they work interchangeably. I mourn a lot more over them than I think they do over each other," he added. "It's kind of hard to tell."

"We are sentimental creatures," Natasha remarked. "I didn't use to think so, but it sneaks up on you after a while."

The elevator arrived and Nick, Vision, Pepper, and Happy stepped off with the pizzas in tow. Natasha was rather surprised to hear her stomach growl in a positive way as she caught the tomato and herb smell of the sauce.

"Uh-oh," said Scott, "we better feed that beast while we can."

"Oh, believe me. I will make the most of it," she said checking her phone. _Two more hours and she'd finally get to talk to Bruce_.

End Notes:

Before someone corrects me, all worker ants are sterile females, so technically, Scott works with a team of all females-something the movie got wrong as did the comic. Anthony should have been Antonia.

The spider and the middleman are in custody, but what secrets have they leaked and to whom? We'll have to see what plot lines intersect.

Next, week there's no way Bruce avoids finding out!

Please let me know if there's anything you want to talk about. I dearly love Vision and Science Bros and Scott and Nat in charge.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary:** Conversations are had, proposals are made, bubbly stuff is drunk, and super secret boy bands make a comeback

 **Notes:** Sorry this is a little late posting, but we're almost back on schedule. This platform still hates my MacBook. Thank you to Autumn_Froste who looked over the first half on her birthday! Any screw-ups are entirely mine. Prepare for the fluff and the feels!

40: Tenacious

As the Hummer wound its way back along the ridge and descended the hill toward the lights of downtown, Bruce pulled off his tie, folded it neatly, and slipped it into his breast pocket. He looked across the compartment at Tony who was checking his phone. While he studied his friend, something occurred to him. "Hey, Tony, mind if I ask sort of a personal question?"

Tony slid his phone back into his pocket. "Yeesh, it doesn't get much more personal than what we've been through the past twelve hours, Bruce. Fire away," he said with a patient sigh.

"Have you ever asked Pepper to marry you?" That got a raised eyebrow out of him.

"Yah, lots of times."

Bruce arched an eyebrow right back, "Oh?"

"Mostly back when I was getting over being a drunk, but I've been working up to it again. She'd prefer I was out of the suits first, but we're kind of negotiating it. We're both business types, so that's what we do. She has this thing about my risky behavior not mixing well with being in a committed relationship."

"Everything seems stable now though, right?"

"Yah, we've got a good balance between our two work lives and the coasts. As long as the calamities stay at a manageable level."

Bruce nodded, "Does it matter to you if it's 'official'?"

"I'm okay either way with it, whatever makes Pepper happy, but yah, it would be nice to do what Mom and Dad did. Pepper doesn't want to start a family till we do."

"But she does want to right? Eventually?"

Tony stared out the widow and chewed a bit at his lower lip, "That's what she's told me, so yah, the last I checked that was still the plan." Tony shifted in his seat, "Why all the questions? Not getting cold feet are you?"

Bruce shrugged, "No, not at all. I was just thinking about how it's taken us both this long. You've been with Pep since I've known you. I know it's not been easy for you two, but you've worked things out and stuck together. At times I'm amazed what she's put up with from you." They both grinned, "But she does, and she does it with grace. She makes it possible for all of us to do what good we can. I can't imagine one of you without the other. Just the way you two look at each other is beautiful, and that doesn't come around often, Tony."

"Thanks," Tony responded, for once taken a bit aback. "From you that means something, Bro."

"I do mean it," Bruce said, "and I wouldn't want to be going through this, this zoo wrapped up in a circus tied up in a dog and pony show with anyone else. Thank you for having my back."

"You're quite welcome . . . Wait, just to be clear, you're still _my_ wingman?"

Bruce grinned, "Yes, I'm your wingman or lab partner or whatever you want. The exceptions are days like today and if I ever get a 'Yes' out of someone. But tonight you're _my_ wingman."

"Ha!" Tony laughed. "Tonight I'm your fairy godmother if we get this pulled off. No, _when_ we get this pulled off because it's happening."

"I believe you. I have faith in your abilities. Just don't be crushed if Nat still puts the brakes on it."

"Nah, she'll promise. You're not asking for much."

Bruce shook his head, "We'll just have to see. By the way, Adam wants me to clarify that Rhodey gets you for a wingman 100% of the time while you're in the suit. I don't think he liked our outing in it anymore than I did."

Tony looked a little hurt, "Now, that happened just the one time, and you were only stuck for what, ten minutes, fifteen tops?"

"It was 45 minutes, and the darn upgraded seals reacted with the gamma and fused it shut before the software failed," Bruce corrected.

"Minor problems," Tony waved his hand in dismissal. "I meant to get back to that."

"No," said Bruce, "you're not. Neither Adam nor I are claustrophobic, but that definitely reached my limit. Rhodey and War Machine can have custody of you in the field. I'll take the lab, and Adam says, 'Bros are bros'?" Bruce looked at Tony suspiciously, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing. He makes a good straight man when Barton's around."

Bruce kept a skeptical eye on Tony, "Don't go getting me in trouble with Clint. I'm in the middle of enough mischief at the farm with Laura and the kids as it is. Just remember, I know what a bad influence you are on me, so it's not that difficult to reason things out."

Tony gave Bruce a beatific look, "Who, me? I would never dream of doing that, alter ego or not."

Bruce ran a hand down his face to his chin and rolled his eyes, "None of you are going to make safe godparents."

Joseph pulled the Hummer up in front of the Cincinnatian with plenty of time to spare. Bruce hadn't heard a peep from the tower all day, but he knew from Tony—both what he'd said and what he'd avoided saying—that a lot had been going on, especially in regards to tracking down the brooch. Bruce had been working through a list of possible infiltrators in his head, but until he could get a look at the spider, he couldn't begin crossing off the suspects. Not for the fist time that day, he wondered how Natasha was holding up. _Babe, I miss you so much_.

((o))

Natasha sat down on the living room rug in their apartment with an exhausted but happy sigh. She'd just seen Scott Lang and Vision off, and Pepper and Nick had ordered her back to the apartment to take a breather before Bruce contacted her. She had her laptop set up and ready on the coffee table, so she took a few minutes to stretch out her lower back and everything else that had tightened up on her since she hadn't be able to work out. After eating four pieces of pizza, she knew she'd have to keep moving or slip into a food coma.

She'd had a constructive, but brief conversation with Vision. She knew he'd have questions, so she'd sat down with him while Scott regaled Pepper and Happy with a description of the spider's capture as Nick looked on with amusement. Vision had started with the obvious questions for her to answer. Yes, this was a huge surprise. Yes, she was extremely happy and excited about it. Yes, the fetus appeared healthy and normal. Vis stared at the sonogram images for several minutes as she explained the notes and the procedure. Vision clearly wanted to discuss how this was possible, but aside from her own situation and what the doctor had told her, she wasn't at all sure about Bruce's side of the equation.

In his polite and thoughtful way, Vision had said, "I've only been studying this for a brief time, but it's plain to me that life finds a way whether it's surviving or reproducing. Bruce should have been dead several times over from the radiation he absorbed. Why should we be surprised if a body that has been so tenacious of life, one that has managed to survive and even thrive under those adverse circumstances, has also found a way to reproduce?"

"Biological imperative?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, at least to a certain extent."

"You make it sound like having this child is a forgone conclusion," she'd noted with an impish smile.

"Oh, hardly that, but if you'll pardon me for being so personal, it's something I have observed you both appear to want when I see either of you interact with the Barton children or others' offspring."

"Playing aunt and uncle isn't necessarily the same thing as wanting to raise one of our own," she countered.

"True. However, there wouldn't be so much sadness mixed with the joy of those interactions if you weren't considering it on some level."

That had made her pause. "You're talking about Bruce, right?"

"I'm talking about both of you. When he has outward expressions of emotion, they're much more pronounced, but you don't always wear your 'spy face'. You do have your less guarded moments, and you are seldom guarded when you're with those three children."

"I must be growing soft in my old age," she had said with a laugh.

"Oh, I would never go that far," he said quite seriously.

"You know, Vis, I'm actually glad to hear I'm being less guarded. It's been hard to let go of that part of me."

"I'm not sure how any of you manage to slip back and forth between roles. I have enough trouble with just one."

"Sometimes I wish it were that simple, Vis."

"I know," he said, "but it's not. May I?" he asked holding out a hand for hers.

Natasha reached over and put her hand in his, "What are you checking for?"

"I can hear more than just your heartbeat, but I think I can pick up on something more," he said. Natasha waited. This should be interesting. "When do you go back to the obstetrician?" the android asked.

"Saturday, why?" she countered.

"I wish Wanda was here because she can pick up on brain waves. She's very hesitant about using those abilities any longer, but she might be able to tell if there is more than one."

Natasha wasn't quite certain she'd understood him correctly. "What do you mean, Vis?"

"Well, Dr. Banner probably had a twin, so there is a likely genetic predisposition on his side for multiples. Do you have any twins or multiples in your family history?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," she said, "but the obstetrician was relatively sure there was only one." He tilted his head and pursed his lips in a way that reminded her of Tony on those rare moments when he was being very careful formulating how to articulate his thoughts.

"Would it be too forward of me to place my hand on your stomach?" he said.

"Place away," Natasha said, and she pulled up her shirt and adjusted her waistband enough for him to touch below her navel. "I'm afraid all you might hear is my stomach digesting all that pizza."

Vision gently pressed his hand palm down across her lower abdomen. Natasha watched him as he concentrated and his face became blank as he focused. After what seemed like several minutes, he looked at her and removed his hand. "Obviously, your obstetrician knows much, much more than I do, but either your womb has an echo or I believe there may be more than one heartbeat."

Just when she thought nothing more could surprise her today . . . Natasha looked at Vision's honest open face and shook her head. "I have no reason to disbelieve you, Vis, but part of me doesn't want to take this information in just yet. It's only been about twelve hours since Pepper and I went to the doctor's office, and now twins?"

"I understand that it might be overwhelming. There are a number of risk factors that increase with multiples. I suppose there's no rush since you have at least six to seven months to go, but I thought you might want a little warning."

Natasha had smiled tiredly and nodded, "Thank you, Vis. I appreciate the warning. No rush, and believe me, I'll text you when we find out."

"No rush, Natasha," he'd replied with a fond smile.

She had thanked him and Scott for their hard work as they left, and Pepper had practically shoved her in the elevator as soon as the hatch closed with reassurances that she'd settle Nick in a room on the same floor as their apartment. Now, Natasha was doing her best to work the knots out of her shoulders and her thoughts turned back to Bruce again. She was confident that Bruce would be incredibly happy with this news, but she doubted with all the well-meaning busybodies on the team—the two worst of whom were with Bruce in Cincinnati—that this was going to be a surprise anymore. In fact, even without Clint and Tony there, she was sure Bruce would have pieced things together, possibly before he'd gotten on the plane. He'd probably also thought through everything that could possibly go wrong and worried about it all day. Now she felt a little bad that she hadn't just called him from the Dr. Vining's office and gotten it out there, but she reminded herself that the security breaches were real and being cautious was the correct way to go. Friday still hadn't turned anything up on the sinister couple from the doctor's waiting room, so it was still the right call to wait till after they were home and one obvious leak was gone.

Natasha had already set up the Skype connection and lined up the images and video from the doctor's office to send to Bruce. She thought about what she wanted to say, and then she started remembering when they'd first talked about their situation and the hopelessness of making their own biological family. They'd both had that door shut for them without their consent, but the desire was still there. Since last December, they had talked about getting help once the Agreements were complete and they had some privacy back. They really did want this. She remembered how during the first conversation they'd had in Kolkata, Bruce had rather bitterly said he didn't always get what he wanted as he'd touched the paint-splattered cradle. That moment was burned into Natasha's memory especially deep because she had just watched him position himself and hold out his hand to protect her junior recruit Prapti and prevent her from running into the path of a speeding vehicle. Natasha had shadowed Bruce for months before that meeting and seen the Hulk in action, but this small act of kindness was her first real impression of him and his longing for a family had been the next. God, how she'd understood him in that instant. The first time they'd made love, Bruce had said he knew the moment he'd agreed to come with her that he'd never really be able to say no to her again. Even if she was being used as bait in a trap, even if she was deadly, he'd wanted to know her. Natasha had reminded herself she should treat him like a mark—a very dangerous mark—but she'd felt a connection to him. He was struggling to be a good person. She was too. They'd become each other's family and made a home—crazy as it was. Now they'd made something else together they'd never dreamed was possible.

Natasha jumped up and paced. Normally, she was quite patient, but not tonight. She walked around the living room and then the dining room and kitchen before grabbing a box of tissues from the bathroom and settling back down on the floor in front of the couch and pulling the laptop over in front of her on the coffee table. It was still a little early, but she could see Bruce had just logged on. She breathed a sigh of relief as his familiar handsome face appeared on the screen. He still had on his suit except for the tie, so they'd probably just gotten back from the opening dinner. "Hey, you're on early," he said with a grin. She went ahead and pushed "send" on her email and just grinned back at Bruce for a moment. "Well," he said, "I've heard you had a pretty busy day," and he raised an eyebrow. "You look like the canary who ate the cat."

"I just sent you something," she said. "I bet you had a busy one, too."

"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't half as exciting as yours," he added half under his breath. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes, much better at the moment. It sort of comes and goes. Open the video first," she instructed and hugged her elbows as she waited.

"Okay," he said as he stroked and engaged the pad on his computer. "You look a lot better now."

She watched him as he pressed his lips together and then bit the lower one before he took a deep breath and held it for a second. His reaction seemed to hit him all at once as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to control his breathing. "Oh, Nat, this is real," Bruce finally said, and his voice had gotten thick with emotion. He opened his eyes again and continued to focus on the video for a few more moments before looking back at her. "I love you," he said.

Her throat had suddenly gotten very tight. "I love you, too, Bruce," she said. "I wish there was some way to be there with you."

"I know. I want to hug you so much right now. I want to put my arms around you and just hold you," he said. They both stared at each other, trying to wish the distance away for a few minutes.

Natasha knew the sniffling and tears were going to start if they stayed like that, so she continued on. "Dr. Vining said everything looks good. Normal size and development, strong heartbeat, nice and active," she reported.

"He or she really likes to kick," Bruce said with a grin. "Can you feel any movement yet?"

"Not yet. I suspect I might not care for feeling like a kickball, but I suppose it might eventually come in handy once he or she is out."

"I'm sorry for your sake, but I'm really looking forward to all of that," he said.

"Oh, you're such a sadist, Banner," she chuckled. "Anyway, Laura scanned them, too, and thought everything looked good and healthy. No spinal issues. Normal brain development. Everything as it should be," she repeated.

Bruce had slipped his glasses on and was looking through the still images. He alternately smiled and chewed his lower lip. He did have some experience reading sonograms, so Natasha watched his reactions. "If he or she hadn't been so shy, we might have been able to tell the sex, but it'll be easier the next time. You, you do want to know, right?"

"Yes, I do. I knew you would, too," she teased. "We're both planners and control freaks."

He laughed, "Yes, that's an understatement. We're probably going to be some of those awful helicopter parents. When is the next visit to Dr. Vining scheduled?"

"Saturday morning," she noticed he looked a little disappointed. "Don't worry, there will be a lot more appointments for you to go with me."

"Why so soon?" he asked.

"Apparently, the clamp on the left fallopian tube came off, which explains what happened on my end of the equation. The doctor wants to track it down and make sure there's no danger from it staying wherever it ended up for now. I think she'd like to remove both of them after the baby is born."

"That would make sense," he said with a nod. He didn't add that their proclivities in the bedroom were likely what dislodged it, but he was rather surprised the tube had not grown shut. He knew from reading up on it that reconstructive surgery and removal of scar tissue was normally required. It didn't matter if one called it a fluke or a miracle, that's what had happened. He looked up at the computer's camera and Natasha was quietly watching him with a warm smile playing across her lips.

"So, how was your day, Doc?" she asked.

"Oh, I went to a doctor's office, too, but you probably already heard about that."

"Clint did ask why you went several hundred miles to see a urologist."

"It was sort of spur of the moment, but this was Mal's nephew who could see me immediately and keep it off the books, so it seemed to make sense at the time."

"Well, what did you find out?"

"That sometimes we make too many assumptions without really checking things out for ourselves."

"So you assumed . . ."

"You know, that I was too genetically damaged to produce healthy sperm cells, but obviously that's not the case, at least not anymore." She thought he looked endearingly uncomfortable and the next moment he was clearly blushing. "Anyway, I still need to get an actual genetic battery of tests done, but at least we may have found someone who can help us with that."

"Really," she said leaning forward, "that is good news. It's been months since Helen was here and we talked about it then. Dr. Vining suggested it, too."

"I can't say too much about it because the ball is sort of in her court, but Lee and Betty were at the dinner and we got to talk quite a bit."

"Lee was on the program, but I didn't see Betty's name," she said.

"His parents offered to watch Madeline, so they could have some time together before the second baby is born," he explained.

"How's she doing? She has to be in the last trimester."

"Doing great as far as I could tell. She called herself a beached whale, but that's probably just what she thinks she feels like because she has that pregnant lady glow. She and Lee both were really happy. This one is supposed to be a boy."

"I'll bet Madeline is excited to be a big sister," Natasha said with a chuckle. "Coop and Lila were both thrilled to have younger siblings."

"She looked like a real cutie in the pictures—all dark hair, skinned knees, and ruffles," he said fondly. "Anyway, before we left, Betty offered to look into things since it is her area of expertise."

"That was very kind of her," Natasha said sincerely.

"Yes, it was. Well, how are you doing? Obviously it was morning sickness," he noted.

"And mid morning and afternoon and late afternoon . . . It finally let up after Scott and Vis were here to help with the brooch." Bruce's eyes had gotten rather wide. "Don't worry. Nick was already here, too, and we found it. Scott and his girls captured it, and Vision collared the person collecting the data. You'll never guess who it was."

"Someone we know?" he asked.

"More like know of. Remember the guy that wrote for the _Globe_ a few years ago who got fired for faking his sources?"

"Yah, Rex Titian. He's the one who insinuated Tony, Pepper, and I had a ménage à trois going and there was a climate of sexual discrimination and harassment at Stark Industries," Bruce said with a sigh.

Natasha snorted, "Oh, how did I forget about that?"

"I guarantee Tony sure hasn't. He did apologize to you eventually for his oafish behavior when you first met, right?"

Natasha nodded. In his own weird way Tony had since done his best to patch things up and reform. They had had a rough start, but they were on solid ground now.

Bruce went on, "There for a while Tony was sending me something about sexual harassment in the workplace at least once a week. As I understand it, back when he first sobered up he worked pretty hard to clean up the corporate culture left over after Stane was gone and so did Pep when she took over as CEO, so some of what was in that piece really stung. Pepper never even let on that she was aware of the accusations, but there were at least two other exposés Titian wrote that were character assassination pieces. Those are what eventually got him fired."

"Well, he looked plenty the worse for wear when Vis brought him in. He's staying with S.H.I.E.L.D. for a while, but we kept the data collection device and the spider for you and Tony to take apart."

"Yea, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it," Bruce grinned. "So Scott and Vis did fine?"

"You bet. Scott was his normal eager self. Don't tell Tony, but he had some of the interns from downstairs swooning." Bruce did have a good laugh at that. "Just wait till that happens with Parker," she said with an impish grin.

"Oh, that will kill him," said Bruce.

Their laughter was interrupted by a knock at the apartment door. The first thought that came to Natasha was that Nick needed something. "Just a second, someone is at the door." The next thing Bruce heard was "Oh, hell! You're all in on this."

Then Pepper said, "Don't blame Bruce for any of the cheesy parts."

"Oooooh," Natasha groaned in exasperation before she came back into view and tilted the screen up so Bruce could see she was seated on the couch now with Pepper, Happy, and Nick behind her grinning. "Friday, music please," requested Pepper and Adele's "Make You Feel My Love" started playing quietly in the background.

Bruce sighed in relief. God knew what else Tony had cooked up without consulting him. He was pretty sure Paul Anka's "Having my Baby" was on the playlist somewhere and he wanted to get to the important part first. "Well," Bruce began, "when I was growing up, when people decided to date and things got a little more serious, they might exchange jackets or class rings or sweatshirts." Natasha grinned because she was indeed wearing one of his sweatshirts she'd pulled out of the hamper because it smelled like Bruce. He grinned back at her and went on, "If people were really serious, they said they were 'promised' and that was not the same thing as being engaged, but sometimes a ring was involved." On cue, Nick brought out the green velvet box and handed it to Natasha. Bruce adjusted his computer's camera and slid down to one knee. "Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, this is a _promis_ e ring, not an _engagement_ ring unless you want it to be. I promise that I will be there for you and our child. I will love you body and soul, no matter what joys and sorrows may come our way for as long as you'll have me. And even if you won't accept it _yet_ , I love you and I always will and I won't quit asking you."

Natasha smiled at him, trying not to cry. She opened the green velvet box and looked at the beautifully crafted ring. She swallowed hard and took it out of the case and slipped it on her pale finger where it fit like it was meant to stay. She cleared her throat and looked back to the computer screen. "Robert Bruce Banner, I love you with all my heart and soul. I accept your promise ring, which is absolutely perfect, and I'll do that one better and proudly be your wife."

It only took about three heartbeats for Pepper to embrace her in a big hug. Nick waited till Natasha had a chance to breath before he gave her a warm embrace as well. Happy laughed and did the same. Although Bruce had been alone when he proposed, he certainly wasn't now. He also looked like he'd had something wet dumped over his head and down his back, but Mal's niece was handing him a towel to dry off. Then Tony appeared to the side and waved. Clint was there and some former S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues she recognized. Natasha was betting they'd heard everything either from a feed in the next room or had done it the old fashion way by standing outside the door. Natasha smiled and waved back and held up the ring as various familiar faces greeted her. She could hear Tony organizing something in the background, and Bruce came back in front of the camera. "I think it was Clint who dumped that half-frozen bottle of water down my back, but obviously it didn't get the computer. Tony and Hulk sort of played a trick on him earlier, so I guess we're even, right, Clint?" Bruce called off camera.

"You never know," laughed Clint.

"Okay, as even as it gets for the moment. Can't wait to see what he does to Tony," Bruce added under his breath as he ran a hand through his wet hair. "Sorry, Pepper."

"I'm sure he'll deserve whatever it is he gets," Pepper said with good humor.

"Okay, they've worked up something for you to hear, which they've spent at least twenty minutes rehearsing. We probably ought to listen to them while they're mostly sober," Bruce joked and he stepped back so they could see Tony and Clint with a few former colleagues Nat knew could carry a tune.

Pepper handed Natasha a champagne flute with something bubbly in it. "Sparkling cider," she said. Someone was handing out champagne in Cincinnati, and the group started an acapella version of "I Swear" with Tony and Clint taking turns with the lead vocals and the rest of the group harmonizing the background chords and joining in at the chorus.

 _I swear by the moon and the stars in the skies  
And I swear like the shadow that's by your side_

 _I see the questions in your eyes  
I know what's weighing on your mind  
You can be sure I know my part_

 _Cause I'll stand beside you through the years  
You'll only cry those happy tears  
And though I make mistakes  
I'll never break your heart . . ._

"Wow," said Nick, "I'm impressed. It doesn't surprise me Tony can sing, but Barton's been sitting on that talent for years."

"This is why you shouldn't skip the Christmas parties, Nick," Natasha said with a laugh. "We'll have to put on a talent show the next time S.H.I.E.L.D. needs a new helicarrier."

 _I'll give you every thing I can  
I'll build your dreams with these two hands  
We'll hang some memories on the walls_

 _And when (and when) just the two of us are there  
You won't have to ask if I still care  
Cause as the time turns the page,  
My love won't age at all_

 _And I swear (I swear) by the moon and the stars in the skies  
I'll be there (I'll be there)  
I swear (and I swear) like the shadow that's by your side  
I'll be there (I'll be there)_

 _For better or worse,  
Till death do us part,  
I'll love you with every beat of my heart  
And I swear . . ._

Applause erupted on both ends of the connection, and champagne was handed out to the singers. Tony stepped forward and raised his glass, "Okay, everyone, a toast to Bruce and Natasha. Two people who have played 'Hard to Get' for many years, but they've finally got each other. Some of us have had to move a few mountains to get this accomplished, and that's a fairly literal statement when it comes to Hulk, but seeing you together, even if it is over a vid link, makes it all worth while. We love you two and congratulate you on your engagement."

"And the baby!" someone yelled from the back.

"Spoiler alert, Bruce!" Clint called as he turned bright red.

"Thank you," said Bruce grinning from ear to ear. "The baby did come up, so you're not spoiling it for anyone now. Thank you for the song, guys. That was really beautiful. I know we're both really touched."

"We both are," said Natasha over the link. "Thank you!"

"All right, folks, let's give these two kids some privacy since we interrupted their conversation," said Tony as he began to shoo people out of the suite. Bruce had hung up his jacket to dry. "Bro you really got wet," Tony said as he gave Bruce a hug.

"It'll be dry in a few minutes with the jacket off," Bruce said. "Thank you, Tony. Couldn't have pulled it off without you."

"That's what I'm here for Bruce. Well, that and the manful tears we'll be sniffing back if I don't get out of here."

They both smiled broadly, and Tony closed the door behind him.

Back at the tower, Pepper, Happy, and Nick had all finished their drinks, admired the engagement ring, and given her more hugs as Natasha thanked them before they left. She sat back down and watched Bruce and Tony hug before the later left and Bruce returned. "I'm going to relocate to the bedroom," he said as he picked up the computer and the background moved dizzyingly fast behind him before he settled the laptop on the bed.

"Are you doing okay?" she asked.

"Yah, I'll be fine till tomorrow. How about you?"

"I'm missing you a lot, but I'm going to drop any moment."

"Okay, I did want to tell you about one other development, and I'll let you get to bed then," he said. "Remember what I told you I'd remembered about my conversation with Stephen Strange back in May? He said eventually I'd remember our full conversation when I was ready or when there was a need to remember it."

"Yes," she said. "I recall you being rather frustrated by it, too."

"Well, after we left the doctor's office this morning, I had a text from Strange, and since then I've started to remember. Some of my memory gaps are filling in, and I can remember Hulk as Adam now. I can talk to him in my head when we want to communicate. It's sort of feast or famine because he tires out, but we're finally as together as we were before the accident."

"You called him Adam?"

"Yes, that's who he is when he's in my head."

"That's a good name for him," she said. "Vision brought up something while he was here that reminds me of this. He said that it shouldn't be surprising, when you were so tenacious of life that you survived the accident, that your body would eventually repair itself. Life finds a way."

Bruce chuckled, "Vis read _Jurassic Park_ a few months ago, so I'm not surprised he's paraphrasing Ian Malcolm, the mathematician in it."

"Chaos theory?"

"That and don't attempt to out run a T-Rex." Bruce had been taking off his clothes down to the TechUWear, which had dried out.

"Or randomly throw frog DNA into the mix. Whoa," Natasha said. "That stuff has molded to you like a second skin, and it does not leave much to the imagination. You changed shirts out, too."

"Yah, Adam and I were seeing if we could control a transformation and practice handing things off. The shirt split in a couple of spots, but the pants have held up."

"Did the handoff work?"

"We had a little trouble changing back, but Adam figured it out."

"That's good," she said. "In fact, that could be majorly important if something happens. Did I mention how proud of you I am? This can't be easy on top of everything else."

"Thanks, it's okay. I'm really proud of you, too, Love. I'd much rather be there with you, but we're doing fine," he said. "Just sixty-two more hours, and I'll have you in my arms."

"I certainly hope so," she said with a yawn.

"Bedtime for you, Beautiful," he said. "Time to shut this down. I'll text you if there is anything important and otherwise call you at 8:00pm tomorrow."

"Good night, sweet prince," she said and kissed her first two fingers and held them out to the screen.

"Good night, my queen," he said and did the same.

 **End Notes:** Well, I hope it was worth such a long wait. Everybody knows now, snd tenacity pays off for Bruce. I'd have to beat it with a fork to it much fluffier since Bruce and Nat couldn't be in the same room together. Let me know what you think. I do live for the comments!


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter 41: With You, I'm Home

 **Summary:** Bruce can't sleep, so some fretting and a flashback to the cottage safe house.

 **Notes:** Mature! Thanks to the ever wonderful Autumn_Froste who keeps getting half chapters at the last minute from me. The messes are all mine. Lots of fluff to smut, fetishes-at least two, and how I love the Bartons!

Bruce was still too wound up to sleep two hours after saying goodnight to Natasha. He'd thrown on some jeans and briefly visited the impromptu party in the commons area at the other end of the floor to thank people. Tony had somehow mysteriously produced a box of Cuban cigars, which he had insisted Bruce pass out, and a few people had gone up to the roof to smoke them. He had hung out a bit with Tony, and then headed back to his room. There he'd read and answered texts from Steve, Rhodey, Maria, Sam, Erik, and Vision. Good news certainly traveled fast around the complex. He finally stripped off his clothes again and then disengaged the TechUWear. It almost seemed to exhale as it separated and pealed off easily enough. Moments later, his phone chimed with an efficiency report and other data, but he left that for mulling over tomorrow. He was meeting his cousin Richard in the morning at Christ Church Cathedral where he served as an Episcopal vocational deacon. Bruce hadn't seen him in years, but they'd caught back up with each other on the Internet, and they were going to spend the morning together. The cathedral was only a few blocks south and east, so Bruce planned to walk over around 7:00am and help with the food program Richard administrated in the basement.

Bruce finally turned off the lights and lay down. Adam was unusually quiet and seemed to be sleeping off the day's excitement, so Bruce was left alone with his thoughts in a very big over-stuffed bed. He wondered if it was going to be like this with Adam all the time: a ball of kinetic energy for a certain amount of time and then total lethargy as he recovered. Not for the first time, Bruce thought of himself as a toddler and later as a teenager doing something similar. Then he worried because he'd gone through a lot of depression as a teen and he didn't want that for Adam. Then a really uncomfortable thought hit him that Adam wasn't really there and he was just imagining all of this in a very schizophrenic way. What proof did he have that he wasn't just making him up to cope with his guilt and disassociate himself further from reality?

"That's an interesting theory, Bruce, but I smash, therefore I am," Adam grumped tiredly. "I'm sorry, I'm just too tired to think coherently. Congratulations, and I'll talk to you in the morning."

"Thanks and go to sleep," Bruce thought with a chuckle. That's how his thinking usually went after something good happed. The other shoe or the sword of Damocles was always ready to fall. Well, tonight at least he was going to sidestep it. His head was not going to take him there. He was going to be a father, and that brought him nothing but joy. If he'd been home in their own big bed, he'd have curled himself protectively around Natasha and softly kissed the back of her neck. He'd have inhaled the smell of her and broken it down to note the shifts in hormones her body was going through. He would have gently slipped his hand around her waist and settled it on her belly. He thought of doing that every night as his child grew inside her. He imagined how the cells had come together, and he'd counted back to the second week of December from the dates on the ultrasound notes. Oh, he knew on exactly what night this child had been conceived, and it hadn't happened in the bedroom. At no point had he been Liminal that day because of the therapy session that morning. This comforted and reassured him. Someplace deep down he sighed with relief: no green involved. Bruce thought about that for a while then shifted to get more comfortable in the strange bed. He'd not been in a bed besides their own since last July, and it wasn't all that strange because he'd slept in that much smaller bed at the cottage safe house for the better part of two months.

Bruce remembered laying there on his side half dozing before it was even noon as the sunlight seeped in around the curtains. Natasha and he had made love for the first time and Hulk had interrupted after the first round, but everything had been okay. Without the fear of another interruption, the second time had been wonderful and he'd orgasmed without shifting past Liminal. The whole thing had been so intense he had fallen asleep for at least an hour afterward. Natasha had spooned against his back, holding him enjoyably tight, breathing softly against his shoulder and soaking in the warmth of the extra body heat he was putting off. However, as he'd started to wake up, he realized he was in bed alone.

As he listened, he could hear Natasha talking quietly to someone on her phone. Judging by the way her voice was fading in and out, she was pacing from room to room. He turned over so he could see the door, which she'd almost shut, and he lay there for a few more moments collecting his thoughts. It was almost noon and the only thing on his agenda was a haircut and shave before the extraction team got there, which still left plenty of time for anything else they wanted to do. He smiled as he thought about what they might do together.

Bruce stretched as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the full-sized bed. He ran his hands through his hair, which fell down to below his shoulders since it wasn't pulled back in a ponytail. This was definitely the longest he'd ever grown it in his life. He wasn't sure if he was going to miss the hair once it was shorter, but the beard was getting itchy. He didn't have to look in the mirror to see how gray he was getting either. Some of it was certainly the stress, but he wasn't in his thirties anymore. Thanks to the parts of the experiment that had worked, his normal metabolism hadn't slowed down at all in the years since. If anything, it had gotten more efficient. He wasn't sure how much extra longevity he would have, but there were signs his life expectancy had increased not by years but decades. Maybe not as much as Steve's, but Bruce would probably outlive most of the people he knew. In the past, he'd used that as one more reason not to get attached or form relationships, but now he'd let that go. If he was going to have a long life, it was time to make it a more connected one. He rubbed his eyes to finish waking up. As long as none of this bothered Natasha, he really didn't care. It was something they'd have to talk about, but maybe not today.

Beside him on the nightstand, a phone began to hum and vibrate. Natasha had obviously brought two because he kept his turned off except for certain hours and it was still in his jeans. He looked at the screen and it identified the caller as "Barton", so he went ahead and answered, fully expecting it to be Clint.

"Hey, this is Nat's new secretary. She's on her other communication device. May I take a message?" However, to Bruce's surprise, the laughter on the other end was most definitely too feminine to be Clint.

"Hi, Dr. Banner, this is Laura, Clint's wife," she said. "I'm using his phone."

"Okay, hi, Laura," he said with an embarrassed laugh. "Please, you're welcomed to call me Bruce. Natasha is in the other room on her other phone."

"That's fine, Bruce. We can talk for a while. By the way, the phone has a camera linkup, so we can see each other when we talk. Just hold it out in front of you. That way I can see more than your ear."

"Oh, sure," Bruce said as he grabbed a pillow and put it across his lap before moving the phone and making sure to tilt it more upward than down. "Let me try this again. Hi, Laura, how are you doing?" He could tell from the background that she was in the kitchen at the family farmhouse.

She grinned at him, "Just got done with supper, and Coop and Lila are enjoying their electronics time. Nate is napping. Clint is replacing a belt on the mower head, so all is right with the world. How about you, Bruce?"

"Natasha arrived this morning. We did some talking, some debugging, and some 'making up'," Bruce replied and bit his lower lip as he considered what was safe to say. "I think a haircut is in my near future," he added as he scratched the back of his head.

"Oh, let me see it then," she said. "I've never seen you this furry before."

"My hair? Uh, okay." He turned his head and shifted the phone so she could see more from the side, but he apparently didn't keep the angle as high as before because she gave a low whistle of appreciation.

"Wow, you are such a silver fox, Bruce. How fast does your hair grow?"

"Uh, fast, I-I guess," he stammered, beginning to blush. "If I keep it really short, I have to get it trimmed every couple of weeks. I didn't want to shave it all off, so I just let it go for once."

"Ah, don't worry, Bruce. Nat knows how to cut hair, but she may not want to. It looks good on you."

"Thanks, that's nice of you to say, but it's time to look more like myself again. Tony is already giving me a hard time about it, so I might as well be preemptive."

Laura studied his image, "I know you must have been stuck inside because I can really see your freckles now. You've lost weight, too, but it won't take Nat long to put that back on you." She paused and gave him a gentle smile. "We can't wait to see you back here on the farm again."

"I'm looking forward to it, but I don't know when it will be," he said rather sadly. "I hope it won't take long, but the details are still being worked out. I may be confined, uh, 'limited' to the tower for a good while."

"It won't be forever though," she said, trying to sound encouraging.

"No, but it could take several months. I wanted to help with the clean up in Johannesburg, but Jenn is pretty sure they aren't going to let me travel abroad any time soon."

"Not at all? When you're willing to help?" she noted.

"We'll probably have to wait till after the Reconciliation process is over and the start of that's about two months away," he estimated. "I want to be there in person, but they're talking about limiting it to a video feed like the court hearings are. I understand some people won't want to be in the same physical space as me, but it's only fair to let those who want to look me in the eye when they tell their stories get to do it."

She nodded, "I'm sure there will still be work to do after Reconciliation is over, Bruce."

"Right. It just gets frustrating when I could be doing more now," he explained with a sigh.

At that moment, Natasha peeked in the door, "Who's called?"

"It's Laura," Bruce said and smiled at her.

"I'm waiting for some information, but I'll be done in a minute," Natasha said. "Don't hang up."

"We won't," he reassured her.

"So, did Nat tell you about the renovations at the tower?" Laura asked.

"I've seen the plans, but Tony was changing them every other day, so I'm not sure what I'll find when we get back," he said shaking his head ruefully.

"Nat put her foot down a few times, so I think you'll like it. She said they've worked on the second gym to accommodate Hulk's sessions, too."

"I can't wait," Bruce said with a smile.

"Oh, hey, the mechanic returns," Laura said as Clint appeared over her shoulder.

"What, you called them already? Did you catch them in bed?" Clint teased. "Hey, Bruce sorry about that."

"No, I was the only one still in bed when Laura called. No problem. Natasha will be off the other phone in a few minutes."

"I'm off," said Natasha as she plopped down eagerly next to Bruce. He noticed she'd put on his shirt to cover up. He went ahead and risked a quick peck on her cheek. She grinned, put her hands on both sides of his face, and pulled him into a kiss that got hungrier and deeper. Bruce was too surprised to point the camera elsewhere.

"Eeeeew!" Clint and Laura both chorused together, sounding like they'd heard their children react that way a few times.

Natasha finally let Bruce out of their lip lock and took the phone from his hand. She smirked as he caught his breath. "So what were you ratting me out about, Laura?"

"I told Bruce about your wooden leg," teased Laura.

"Yah, the one with the machine gun hidden in it," Natasha joked back. "I'm never going to live that trick down."

"Hey, it's not my fault if you can't tango and tote a weapon with a real barrel at the same time," complained Clint.

"Only if I keep my back really, really straight," Natasha responded.

"Sorry, Bruce," lamented Laura, "you'll eventually get used to all the inside jokes. Just don't believe anything either of them say with a straight face."

"Yah," he said, "I think I already caught on to that part. It's the complex spy jargon that throws me off. All the specs on the firearms and ammo get a little complicated."

"Oh, get in the bathroom and start trimming that beard back so I can finally kiss your face, Doc," Natasha said, giving him a friendly nudge with her shoulder and a quick kiss on the side of his neck.

"As you command," he returned, giving her knee a squeeze as he got up. "Bye, Bartons," he called and they responded in kind. Bruce tossed the pillow back on the bed once he was out of the camera's line of sight and stepped into the bathroom. Natasha had retrieved his shave kit and had also laid out a few of her own pieces of equipment that she'd had stashed in her duffle bag. He spread a couple of sections he'd saved from the local newspaper on the floor to make cleanup a little easer since all the bio material would have to go in the incinerator before they left. He started with a pair of barber's scissors and trimmed off as much as he could on the sides. For a few minutes he contemplated leaving a moustache and goatee of some sort and played around with it using the trimmer, but as soon as her conversation with the Bartons was over, Natasha slipped in behind him and she immediately shook her head.

"Tony will tease the shit out of you," she warned.

"I could just leave it on the chin?"

She shook her head, "Nope."

"'Stash and soul patch?"

"Only if you really insist," Natasha said with a sigh. "The reason a lot of guys have facial hair is to be flashy or try to hide flaws. You don't need to act like a peacock, and you don't have any facial flaws to conceal. You're not laying low and trying to hide anymore either. Besides, you are so much easier to kiss and do other things with if I don't have to dodge any spikey facial hair," she added with a knowing smirk.

Bruce shook his head, "I think just avoiding shaving is part of it, too. All right, your impeccable logic has persuaded me, Ms. Romanoff."

She gave him a hug and then pulled back a bit to look him in the eye with a mischievous grin. "Let's mess with Stark."

"Okay," he said rather dubiously. "What do have you in mind?"

"You've got all this raw material here," she said stroking his face. "Let's do something as intricate as his and send him a picture before we shave it off."

"All right. Can you do like a Mandrake the Magician?"

"I'm pretty sure Mandrake just had a little waxed mustache."

"How about Worf?"

"Worf had a goatee, but not a full mustache. There was a gap in the middle. If you want a full mustache, that would be like mirror-mirror Spock," she said pursing her lips as she traced the outlines of where a goatee would be with her thumbs along his cheeks and chin.

"Okay, evil Spock, I can go with that."

"All right. Just be really still as I do this." She used an electric trimmer first to get the excess off and then roughed it out from where he'd gotten before she brought out a real straight razor. "Lather it up and I'll do the rest," she said. He complied and she used short precise stokes to refine the shape before she cleaned up his throat and the sides. "Okay, wipe it down and let's get the picture." They took a couple of shots, both grinning and serious and sent them to Tony. "You do look good," she noted, "but the facial hair always puts years on."

"Does that bother you?" he asked.

"No, but we do have a gap. I'm comfortable with it. We've known each other long enough that we have a common frame of reference, and we know we have similar interests and outlooks. It's not like I'm some brainless ingénue and you're my old sugar daddy. People can think what they want."

"I've not read my own file," Bruce said, "but it probably includes something about how I'm not aging normally."

"There was some speculation that you self-repair or the processes had slowed down, but also I've noticed you're holding pretty steady." She looked at him until she held his gaze, "To be fair, have you read my files?"

"No," he shook his head. "I thought if there was something important you wanted me to know, you'd tell me yourself."

She shook her head and smiled as she reached out and stroked his face. "I love you, Bruce. Eventually, you should read them."

"I don't need to," he insisted.

"If you had, you'd know there's speculation the Red Room did some experimenting of their own. I may be older than I look."

He frowned and shook his head, "Do you know? Can you remember?"

"I don't know for certain. There are so many false memories I can't tell what's real. If everything I can remember were true, I'd be twice as old as I think I am, but that's impossible because it can't all have happened."

He wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned into him, resting her head on his chest. "You know, what really counts is that we make our own," he said. "Those memories will be real. What we've already made are real."

"You make a good point," she said and smiled up at him. "Okay, let's get the rest of this done." She gave his bare ass a good squeeze.

"Oooo! That felt pretty real," he laughed.

She took the razor back up from where she'd wiped it clean on the counter. "Lather up, Doc." He did and she carefully cleared the rest of his salt-and-pepper facial hair, making faces to show him where to push out his cheek from the inside with his tongue. "Bozhe moi," she said dramatically as he finished wiping the last of the soap and water away with a towel, "I believe I recognize this incredibly handsome face. If we didn't need to get your hair done, I'd take you back in the bedroom right now."

"I call a kiss break," he said as he playfully pulled her close.

"Oh, good, I was hoping this was a union shop," she snarked as their eager lips met. He was more confident and relaxed than when he kissed her earlier, opening his mouth just enough to tempt her and waiting for her to explore before gently meeting her tongue with his. His lips caressed hers, and she brought up her hands to stroke his smooth face. She wasn't sure how long kiss breaks lasted, but she didn't want this one to stop anytime soon. His hands had slipped up to gently squeeze her biceps. After a few more heartbeats, she backed off, stroking his cheek with her hand as she gazed into his brown eyes. "I hate to say this, but that mane isn't cutting itself."

He smiled and shook his head. "Go on then. Let's get it done," he replied. "I'm okay with however you want to do it."

"Don't tempt me. I might not cut that much off," she said as she ran her hands through his locks, measuring the length. "Above or below the collar?"

"Above would probably be more 'respectable'," he mused.

"Who says you have to be 'respectable'?" she teased as she directed him to sit down on the toilet seat lid.

"Am I going to have to testify at some point?"

"Yet to be determined," Natasha replied as she selected a couple of the clips she'd laid out with her other equipment to hold sections of his hair back. She had him tilt his chin down as she began to cut and the curls began to hit the newspaper spread on the floor. "By the way, that was Jenn I was talking to on the phone. The tape scored big, so the good news is your citizenship is intact and the flight has been cleared. We'll be able to land directly at the tower without worrying about US Customs and Homeland Security. The not-so-good news is we'll be staying put there for the immediate future, which sounds bad but that will be subject to review by the oversight board we're setting up."

"How long are we looking at? Six months? A year or more?" he asked without allowing any emotion to creep into his voice.

"It may not be that long. The idea is that there will be incentives for positive behavior and 'progress'. We play our cards right and you'll get some time out before Reconciliation, but it's the first big goal," she noted as she continued to work from side to side, cutting and measuring to keep things symmetrical. "Do you want your ears covered or not? I've seen you with it both ways."

"Covered. Sort of at an angle. That's how I had it last time," he showed her by holding up a finger to his ear at the angle he meant.

"Got it." She finally had him face forward, and he closed his eyes as she cut the front. He flinched a little as she worked around his ears, especially when she used the electric clippers to cut the angle. Soon she had him stand up and offered him a hand mirror she'd brought so he could see the back of his head. "How's that?" she asked him.

"Great! I feel like I've lost a couple of pounds of hair," he said seriously. He turned and faced himself in the mirror and fluffed the top as he carded his fingers through the thick curls. "Thank you," he said with a broad smile.

"You're welcome. There's plenty of it left on your head, but there's a ton or two on the floor," she said carefully gathering up the newspapers and folding them up to deposit with the other bio materials headed to the incinerator.

After helping dispose of the hair and papers, Bruce stepped into the shower. "Do you want to join me?" he asked. (Thank goodness he'd remembered to turn the water heater on earlier since it only warmed the water on an as-needed basis.) "I promise there's plenty of hot water this time."

Natasha slipped out of his shirt and hung it on a peg by the door. As he looked at her lovely pale body, he could feel something shift inside him. The shower wasn't very big, but they didn't let that bother them as they took turns getting wet, soaping up, and rinsing off. They'd both been very calm and deliberate up to that point, but as their eyes met now, a barrier seemed to drop. They pulled each other close and began to explore one another's bodies with their mouths and hands. This time he wasn't tentative as he kissed up and down her throat and his right hand massaged her thighs before moving to her crotch. She moaned, "Oh, Bruce, I want you so badly, but we'll take out a wall or end up on the floor if we do it here."

He chuckled, "You're probably right. I need to take a reading and put on a condom if we're going to do this."

"I have every intention of doing this," she said, and stepped out of the shower, grabbing towels and pulling him with her back to the bedroom. Bruce retrieved his phone and scanned with neutral results. She had already found a condom in the nightstand and was looking for another radiation neutralizing applicator.

"You should still be okay with the foam from earlier," he told her.

"Good. Come here," Natasha said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. He was already getting a very noticable erection.

Reading her thoughts, he said, "No, don't go down on me without protection. As much as I'd enjoy it, there's still a chance you'll ingest gamma radiation, so it's better not to do it." She made a disappointed face. "It's okay. This is something we can work on. Just stroke me. It won't take much." She wrapped her right hand around the base of his shaft and deftly ran her hand up and down it as it quickly engorged. He groaned with pleasure as she touched him and whimpered a bit as she removed her hand to tear open the wrapping and fit the condom over his cock.

"Scoot back," Bruce directed, and he helped Natasha to the middle of the bed. He pulled his knees under him and sat back on his heels. "Climb on," he said, grinning eagerly, and she straddled his thighs, lowering herself onto his lap as he supported her hips. She breathed in deeply as his erection slipped smoothly into her. "Okay?" he asked.

"So much better than 'okay'," she said huskily. "You feel so good."

"This gives you control over how fast and how deep you want me to go," he told her, "and I get to touch you and kiss you and hold you."

"And fuck me," she said with a smirk.

"Oh, I thought you were fucking me," he teased her back.

"This is so mutual," she said breathily as she began to work her hips up and down slowly and he responded in kind, leaning back slightly and finding the sweet spot for their balance.

He leaned in and started planting the lightest of kisses on her throat and chin, working up to her left ear. He sucked gently on her earlobe and nibbled along the edge. His left hand moved up to her right breast, kneading and exploring, lingering on a scar. He leaned in further and kissed her left shoulder. Finding an old scar there, he licked it gently and felt out its edges with his lips. "Sometime I want you to tell me about all of these," he whispered in her ear. His hand tracked down to her stomach, touching and lingering on the scars he found.

Natasha had been enjoying Bruce's caresses. As their bodies moved together, she'd been paying attention and noted his fascination with her scars. In the past, she'd noticed when he'd treated her for injuries that his gaze often lingered on her "war marks" and it was clear he wanted to touch them, but he'd always held back from indulging what was probably a bit of a fetish. Today he'd dropped some of his inhibitions and she was eager to let him play out his desires. "I'll tell you about some of them now if you like."

"This one," he whispered and kissed the old pale mark below her left collarbone as their bodies pressed sensuously together.

The scar in question had a ragged edge but had healed almost flat on the surface. "Well, it's an old one. There was an explosion and a wooden shard impaled me. I was extremely lucky it hit where it did and that it didn't get infected. The shard came out clean and didn't leave fragments, but it bled and bled. If I'd pulled it out immediately, I likely would have bled out. I had to walk a good five miles to get help."

"Thank God, you were okay," he said and wrapped his arms around her, resting his cheek against her shoulder. He stopped his thrusting into her. "Maybe I shouldn't have asked."

Natasha chuckled at him, "Hey, any mission you can walk away from . . ."

"I agree. Honestly, I'm not sure why it turns me on so much to know how tough you are, but I hate thinking about you getting hurt. If I saw it happen, I might lose it."

"It's okay. We're both sitting it out on the bench for a little while at least. No missions." She didn't add that she was about at the end of her leave time, but they'd talk about it later. She nuzzled him and kissed the back of his neck until he raised his head from her shoulder. He looked at her with love and concern, which touched her, but she wasn't going to let his tendency to melancholy put an end to the passion. Before he could object, Natasha kissed him hungrily on the lips. He responded quickly with both of his hands returning to her hips and then reasserting a smooth rhythm. "Yes," she growled as she ground her hips into his. "No worries right now. Just us enjoying each other. Got it?"

"Oh, yes!" he said breathlessly.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and ran her hands through his hair. She'd left plenty of curls just so she could hold him and touch him like she was now. "I've wanted you to do this to me for so long, Bruce." She confessed.

Their thighs hit together energetically as they moved together, getting closer to their goal. "Talk dirty to me, Nat," he said, his voice getting ragged now.

She laughed a throaty laugh, "I knew it! I knew you were going to be wild underneath. So many times, I've wanted to jump your bones, Doctor. I knew you wanted to fuck me. Now I find out you're a sex machine underneath that quiet exterior."

"Oh, yes! I've wanted to fuck you every day for years now," he affirmed. "I've wanted to make you mine, all mine. My Natasha! We've waited so damn long. Mine!" He dug his fingers into her hips above her ass.

"I'm yours, Bruce. All yours. Oh, God. Make me come," she gasped as they clashed together, flesh on flesh. The shuddering took her, and she felt it all the way from crotch to throat as she arched her back. "Oh, Bruce, you're mine, all mine!" she choked out.

"I love you, Nat!" he sobbed as he let go and came hard, shuddering and holding her close.

"Don't let go of me, not yet," she said a moment later as the endorphins began to kick in. "I just want to feel your touch, Bruce."

He'd held her and said he loved her again, burying his face in her shoulder until she'd realized he really was quietly weeping. Natasha pulled away a little bit to look at him and see what was wrong. He'd felt so embarrassed, but the tears kept flowing for a few more minutes as they held each other.

"It's okay. Love, tell me what the matter is," she said when Bruce had some of his composure back.

"This may sound stupid," he tried to explain, "but I'm with you, Nat, and I know I'm home now. It's just such a relief."

With that she'd given him one of her lopsided smiles and smoothed his hair back, "Don't worry, Bruce. That's not stupid at all. In fact, that's absolutely the truth. We are each other's home now. Wherever we are, from now on, as long as I'm with you, I'm home and so are you."

 **End Notes:** Almost had this one up on time. Hope you enjoyed it! Wow, nearly a whole chapter without clothing. Please let me know what you think in the comments. Questions and conversation also welcome! A bit more to wrap up with the flashback next week.


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary:** Still in the flashback to the safe house in England. Fluffiness with some hotter moments. A conversation with Adam and the beginning of a quest. Some Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. help with the extraction, and this is how to tick Nat off in one to two easy steps.

 **Notes:** This is a big chapter with a little something for everyone. Hope you get the STTNG reference and everything Adam throws in to amuse himself. I actually got this one done on time thanks to Autumn_froste! Yea! Hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 42: Prodigals

"Let's see. Three rounds of Olympic-level sex with less than an hour and a half of recovery between—plus, I can hardly keep up with you. I think you've earned some down time, you sexy beast," Natasha concluded as she held him tight and kissed along the back of his neck and down his right shoulder.

"I love you, Natasha," he whispered as his eyes closed.

"Promise me you'll bring up what happened the next time you talk to your therapist," Natasha said.

"Cecily. I'll be sure to tell Cecily I'm happy and I cried and I told you how I feel. She'll say it was a breakthrough," he mumbled. Natasha watched him slip off to sleep as his features finally relaxed and the frown lines eased out of his brow. Eventually, the tension in his spine and limbs let up, too, and his breathing deepened. There was still plenty of time before the extraction, so she intended to let Bruce get as much sleep and down time as he needed. He was probably going to want it because they might be in for a long flight in some fairly uncomfortable jump seats. Jenn had told her there was a lot of chatter on some of the dark channels about possible attacks and snatch-and-grab attempts, so rather than using a helicopter or ground transportation to take them to a second field and a larger plane, they might use just a quinjet and take it nonstop back to the States. Either way, there might be some last-minute schedule changes just to make certain their plans weren't blown.

As Natasha began to wind down herself, she continued to hold Bruce close with her right arm across his chest and her thigh hooked over his hip. If he had noticed the guns she had placed under the pillow or behind the headboard or under the mattress's foot, he hadn't said anything. Bruce might not think they were necessary, but she liked to keep her options open. Natasha caught herself smiling contentedly because he clearly trusted her and had felt safe enough to be completely vulnerable in both an emotional and physical sense. In fact, she was willing to bet that this was the first time in months Bruce had let his guard down to this degree. Always being on the alert was automatic for her—it was part and parcel of her trade, her second nature—but it wasn't at all natural for him, and he paid a price for living with the stress and fear of losing control. As she rested her head against his shoulder, she went over some of her checklists, which she liked to do to relax herself. Spy or not, she had always been a goal-oriented person. She finished with a short list she had made for Bruce. _Step one: admit you have a problem_. Check. _Step two: acknowledge you need help_. Check. _Step three: accept the help_. In progress. _Step four: get your ass back home_. Pending.

((o))

Bruce knew he was asleep when he recognized the house in front of him as the one his family had lived in on base in Dayton. It was spring and the lilacs on the side of the two-story brick house were in bloom, and all but the last of the huge yellow Darwin tulips along the driveway were spent. Bruce followed the walk around the side and climbed the steps to the backdoor. It was unlocked, but he knocked before he went inside, "Adam?"

"I'm here in the kitchen," called a child's voice.

Bruce walked through the back mud porch and waited in the kitchen doorway as he studied the room. There were noticeably more details and it felt more like someone lived here than it had the last time Bruce had visited and they'd sat under the dinette set. This time Adam was sitting at the table working on a drawing. He had on Levi's and a striped t-shirt, but his Converse sneakers were kicked off on the floor beneath the chair. "Don't look, I'm almost done," he said as he swung his sock-covered feet back and forth. Half of the tabletop was hidden under paper and crayons from a Crayola 48-pack. Bruce smiled at the organized chaos. Adam was a dead ringer for Bruce at eight or so with dark curling hair, which defied the military cuts his father tried to impose, and the beginnings of a summer tan with freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks. The only real difference was the deep brown of Bruce's eyes was instead a dark shade of green in Adam's. "There, all done," he announced as he pushed the pad across the table for Bruce to critique.

Bruce was a little surprised that it was the exterior of the cottage safe house with a pretty fair rendering of the garden with its wall, hedge, and variety of flowers. Natasha—it couldn't be anyone but Natasha with red hair and a brightly colored blouse—stood on the road and looked over the gate like she was waiting for someone. "Wow, it's beautiful, Adam. This is so much better than I could do. You've used perspective and the colors really match the morning light. It's very Impressionistic. I wish I could show this to Natasha," he said a little sadly.

"Sorry," Adam said as he replaced the crayons in the box, "it's an in-Bruce's-head-only exclusive edition."

"So you've been able to see the garden?" Bruce asked.

"Yah, you like to spend time there. When you're relaxed, I'm able to take in everything. I have a pretty good map of the village and the lanes and fields you like to walk, too," Adam noted. "I also know parts of the clinic and the Autism Research Center really well."

Bruce smiled. When Adam was Hulk, as long as he was calm, they could both remember things, but the one in charge tended to get the most detailed memories. During the Hulk's therapy sessions at the Center, it was important for Adam to get as much "face time" as possible, so Bruce stayed as far in the background as he could without being completely unavailable if something went wrong. Luckily, nothing "wrong" had happened since Johannesburg, so most of the time Bruce only had a few vague images and impressions to piece together after one of Adam's sessions. This wasn't such a bad thing because Adam was learning to deal with the ever-present physical pain while in Hulk's form for longer periods, so his intellect was beginning to assert itself as he was able to "log in more time behind the wheel" as one of their therapists liked to put it. Improving Hulk's communication was the main issue the therapy team had focused on since it was the underpinning for everything to follow. The spoken words weren't quite there yet, but the Big Guy was getting close. Adam as Hulk understood everything their therapists said, and he could even make himself understood with his small vocabulary of spoken words and gestures, but they were now to the point that if Hulk's speech skills didn't make progress soon, they would probably have to start learning sign language. Either way, Bruce was very proud of the progress Adam had made in the short but intensive time they'd been there.

"We need to have a talk while I'm here, Adam. Do you want to stay here at the house or take a walk?" Bruce asked.

"Let's take a walk," Adam replied. "Where do you want to go?"

"The Beach," Bruce said without hesitation. He was feeling just as cooped up as Adam.

"Big Sur, Mustang Island, the Great Lakes, or name a continent?"

"Presque Isle on Lake Erie," Bruce decided, thinking of family vacations when he and his aunts, uncles, and cousins had piled in a station wagon and headed north to the sun and sand on Lake Erie. One year they'd gone to Port Clinton and another they'd headed east to Pennsylvania and Presque Isle. Bruce had fond memories of the state parks and lighthouses he'd explored. His cousin Rich was a good six years his senior, but as the only two male cousins, they'd bonded over their disdain for the shrieking of the girls over teen magazines and a love of baseball.

"You must want to throw some rocks," Adam concluded as he got up from the table and touched Bruce's arm, becoming his green-eyed twin. He put on his shoes that had morphed into adult sized cross-trainers.

"I like throwing rocks, especially when I can't get in trouble for hitting anything," Bruce said. He picked up the sketchpad and looked at the drawing. "May I put this up on the refrigerator?"

"Uh, sure. I'd like that," Adam said with a grin. "I think there are magnets in the junk drawer."

Bruce carefully separated the finished drawing from the rest of the pad before he retrieved two magnets from the cabinet drawer nearest the back door and placed the artwork prominently on the front of the old Frigidaire. "Hey," he said cocking his head to the side, "don't forget to sign it."

"Okay, but we both know whose it is."

"Yah, but you need to take credit for your work when you can."

Adam shook his head and took a pencil from the table and wrote "Adam Hulk Banner" neatly in the corner. "How's that?"

"Good," said Bruce with a grin as he gave Adam a side hug.

Adam grinned back and ruffled Bruce's hair, "Nice cut, by the way." Before Bruce could react, Adam was quickly out the door, and Bruce followed on his heels. The grassy lawn of the backyard quickly became sand dunes and grass tufts and the wind picked up. Soon they were standing on the shore looking at the gray waves and blue skies above the lake that was actually an inland freshwater ocean. Perhaps because he'd first seen them when he was young, the Great Lakes always made Bruce feel rather small. He had spent time here on Erie's south shore and also on the northern shores of Superior, Huron, and Ontario while he was on the run. Adam could also remember a great deal about the lakes from both periods, so the detail here was quite good, even if it was more of a generic shoreline than a specific one. Bruce breathed in the smell of sun, water, and sand. There was always a little vegetative and marine ripeness and decay underneath, but he still loved it because of the memories it triggered.

"Well, what did you want to talk about, Bruce?" Adam asked as he took off his shoes and socks to walk in the sand and water. "I know we're getting ready to leave the cottage in a few hours."

"Right, we're getting ready to leave and go back to the tower with Natasha. This time we're going to share an apartment there and also a bed now."

"I thought that's what the plan was. You've been thinking a lot about it. It's what you want right?"

"Yes, more than almost anything. I should have brought this up with you before, but I didn't know how this morning would go, so I held off in case something had happened. Are you going to be okay with this?"

"Oh, ye of little faith. She's crazy about you. There's no way 'Tasha would have left you hanging," Adam said as he started searching for flat rocks to throw even though there was too much surf to skip them properly.

"It's not that I don't have faith in her. I just didn't want Natasha to feel obligated if she'd changed her mind or was disappointed with me." Bruce started picking up rocks and examining them, too.

"What little I saw—sorry about that, by the way—she didn't look disappointed. She looked pretty happy. In fact, I'd go as far as saying she really liked whatever you were doing if that's what you're worried about."

"Okay, that's good to know," Bruce said, trying not to let on how much better that made him feel, whether or not Adam fully understood what he was talking about. "Now, about today, I know you were being protective. That's not a problem. Just realize that our being 'intimate' is going to happen possibly on a daily basis, so please be very judicious when it comes to intervening."

"You're not going to have to worry about that," Adam said, just a bit embarrassed. "I honestly didn't realize what was going on or I would have kept my distance. What you two do is your business. Just don't be surprised if you start tapping into some Liminal effects and edging into the green, especially if I'm not there to take up the Hulk duties because I've been Hulked-out for a therapy session. Those always wipe me out, and I can't be there to keep us physically separate, so our two forms are more likely to shift."

"Okay, thanks for the warning," said Bruce. "I was wondering if that would be the case. I really don't want to half Hulk-out on Natasha. She doesn't need to deal with that. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you understood what was happening. I've not lived with anyone in a long time, so we're both, well, all of us will have to get used to it."

Adam tossed a stone into the surf and bounced it off a wave top, "I don't think there will be a problem. We all get along really well working together. I'm fine with you two 'cohabiting'. I mean you're the one who is actually living and sleeping with her. I just get to spend time with 'Tasha on missions and other odd moments. I've missed working with her and everyone else."

"I've missed them, too. We're going to have to be patient though because I doubt we'll be back in the field on missions for a while," Bruce told him.

That elicited a frustrated growl out of Adam, but he still managed to skip another stone off of a wave top.

"Oh, hey," Bruce said, "something I just found out about is Tony has been working on the smaller gym. Maybe so it can be your therapy space."

"Really? That would be sweet. That space is big enough I don't feel like I'm going to step though a wall of break something quite so much every time I move."

"I think it might be a surprise," Bruce said as he smacked a rock into a wave.

"Okay, that's cool. Is Natasha moving into your apartment since it's the bigger one?"

"It started out as my apartment, but I think it's undergone some significant renovations. Nat has had input, but like I said, it's probably all going to be a surprise. I just hope Tony didn't gut a whole floor or something," Bruce speculated.

"When you get there. Be sure and take a good look around, so I can get an idea what it's like. It would help me not to break things if I'm ever there for some reason."

"Okay, I think I'll be taking it all in whether I remember what you asked or not."

Adam laughed, "One day I'm going to make the mental suggestion you write a note on your hand with a permanent marker the moment you wake up."

"Hey, I try to remember," Bruce said apologetically. "I don't forget you on purpose."

"I know. Hey, if 'Tasha and you are going to live together, are you going to get married?" Adam asked as he threw another stone.

"Wow, that's a good question," Bruce said, feeling a little at a loss. "I don't know yet. I'd like to, but we've not had a chance to talk about it. This is all pretty new stuff."

"I guess you don't have to get married to have children," Adam said keeping his eyes on the waves.

"Adam, I don't think that's in the cards for us. Natasha says she was sterilized as part of the Red Room's program, as part of her 'graduation ceremony' is what she said. You know it's even more a definitive _no_ in my case. The mechanics are all fine. I'm under control now. I have no problem with the physical act, but the radiation exposure damaged the epididymis and vas deferens, the parts of the organs that produce sperm, so there is no way I can father children. Anyway, we haven't talked about it yet, but there are other ways to have kids."

"Yes, but I know you really want to have children."

"I do and I think I'm safe in saying she does, but that's down the road a ways. Hell, we just had sex for the first time this morning, Adam. Let's slow down till I get to bring it up with her."

"Okay, no problem. Some people are perfectly happy playing aunt and uncle, but my money is on her wanting kids, too. After all, she likes me when I'm a big green grumpy brat."

Bruce came to a full stop in mid throw and looked at Adam, "That is so not the same thing."

Adam smirked, "Are you saying I'm not adorable when I'm big and sweaty and covered in dirt and broken concrete?"

Bruce shook his head, "Don't go there."

"I'm just saying 'Tasha has her nurturing side. If she can be kind and gentle with me when I'm at my ugly worst, it's not so far fetched that she could handle having a little 'monster' with you who would be a whole lot more lovable," concluded Adam.

Bruce sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. "It's such a moot point."

Adam dropped his last couple of rocks and looked at Bruce. "Why do you say that?"

Bruce shook his head, not wanting to say it again.

"I think you know better," Adam said, taking a step to get in Bruce's line of sight. "Look at me. You don't like to think about it, but there are possibilities here you've not dared to explore. I know you're scared. You don't know what you'll find. You think you'll just be disappointed, but don't give it up before you've at least looked into it. Since we've been communicating again and I'm not confined to your subconscious, I've been looking around. This body of yours is capable of some amazing things, including repairing itself, don't sell it short just yet."

Bruce wanted to believe this, but getting past his fears and embracing what he had become was difficult. So much of his past was stacked against him. His father had been convinced Bruce was a mutant and therefore a monster by default. Bruce felt he was so imperfect, never quite good enough, and the accident had only confirmed and magnified that feeling. Why did he find it so easy to accept Adam now, yet he still had such reservations about himself?

"You know what?" Adam finally said. "I can see how hard this is for you. Let me look into it for now."

Bruce almost sighed with relief before he caught himself. "Adam, it's not worth your time. Just let it rest. Please just leave it alone."

Adam didn't say anything, but his gears were turning. He wasn't going to thwart Bruce's wishes outright, but he was already thinking through what he could do to assess the situation. All he would be doing was fact gathering, so where was the harm in that? "You're saying this to someone who has nothing but time on his hands and who has less obtrusive access than you do to assess your current condition," Adam said as dispassionately as possible.

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed, "All right, I could really make an argument out of this, but I know you've made up your mind. I also know I can't stop you. Just don't do anything rash."

"Me? Rash? Never," teased Adam. "This is purely educational and informative."

"Yah, right. Yea, science," Bruce replied without enthusiasm. "Nothing stupid, okay?"

"Got it," said Adam.

"I'm trusting you to use good judgment."

"Yes, Dad. I'll have the car back in the driveway by 10:00pm. No speeding tickets or traffic violations. I'll even fill up the tank," Adam said with a very small hint of sarcasm.

They stood there looking at the water for a while longer until Bruce knew his time was almost up. "Sorry, I have to go," he said. "I hope everything will run smoothly this evening and you won't be needed. Till then, hang tight and I'll see you once we're settled in the tower. Believe me, I'll get you a good look around, especially of the new rooms and renovations. The first therapy session is scheduled the week after we arrive, so we'll get to meet some new people, too."

"Sounds, good," Adam said, and gave Bruce an embrace, which he willingly returned. "Take care of yourself and 'Tasha. Tell everyone I miss them, too."

"I will," Bruce said as he let go and faded.

Adam stood there a few more minutes on the shore and made a squall blow up then let it and the lake and the shore disappear. His first step was to figure out how the gamma radiation was functioning now. He wasn't on friendly terms with "the Gamma" obviously, so he could see why Bruce was reluctant to take this on. It was both the cause of their suffering and the fuel that kept them alive now—a necessary pain in the ass as far as Adam was concerned. Deep down he knew it wasn't evil—it just was—like any force of nature. He wasn't sure why he had to use personification with it except that during the moment when the accident happened and he had acted to protect Bruce, something had fought him. Back before he'd even been named Adam, he'd been called Guardian because that's what he did. Later, Bruce had called him Echo because he bounced ideas off him. As he thought back, Adam wasn't sure exactly what he had done when the accident happened because it dominoed out of control too fast, but he had protected Bruce's nervous system and vital organs. He hadn't worked completely alone. Part of the "treatment" had been Bruce's anti-radiation formula, so that had bolstered what Adam was doing. There were also other things in that wonder drug cocktail, which included parts of the super soldier serum, which Betty had reengineered. Most of the elements had done what they were supposed to do, but something had gone wrong and the small dose of gamma radiation that should have activated some elements and bound everything together in the right way was off the scale and tore through the components and started to destroy Bruce's cells.

Adam used everything he could to shield Bruce and force his cells back together (he had no idea he could do that till he was desperate enough to try), but when the Gamma couldn't find any other fuel to burn, it turned like something sentient and flooded into Adam as a horrible green backdraft. To protect Bruce, he took it all into himself and held it there until it was contained. Stephen Strange said it exceeded the output of a small sun for that instant. It should have been glorious to go out that way like a green alien sun gone nova, but that's not how it worked. Adam had read the articles on the Internet when Bruce did much, much later. April 16, 2005, was both a funeral for who Adam had been and a birthdate for the Hulk.

For several hours after the accident, Adam was sure he was dead except that he was in pain, so much pain, as he came back to himself. He knew he was burned, absolutely fried inside and out. For a being of pure intellect, that should not have been possible. Now, all he could do was feel physical pain as it became clear he was curled up in a fetal ball lying on his side in a bed of pine needles. He knew he heard a songbird, but it was incredibly loud and shrill. The slight breeze he could feel was a roaring loud tempest. The sound of pine needles crunching beneath his body and hands as he struggled to sit up was crashing loud. He covered his ears, but there was little relief. The light in the clearing beyond the gloom beneath the trees burned his eyes. He rubbed at his face and stopped to stare at his hands. Why were they so large and . . . green? They were crusted in brown and reeked of iron: blood. He smelled of singed things and poison and crushed cinderblock and metal. Adam shook his head to try and clear it. He knew he wasn't where he belonged. He should be able to hear Bruce's heartbeat and feel his presence, his breathing. Then it hit Adam, he was on the outside and he wasn't himself, he wasn't Bruce, he was something else. His head hurt too much to think and every time he moved his senses screamed and flooded him with input, so he curled up again and concentrated on breathing in and out, focusing on his own heartbeat for the first time. Why were births always so painful?

When he passed out, he was aware that Bruce took over and a new wave of physical pain became crushing as he contracted and screamed. In that brief Liminal moment, Adam reached out to him, but Bruce recoiled, thinking what he saw was the cause of all this horror. " _No, you know me! You know who I am!"_ Is what Adam tried to say, but it was too guttural and full of pain for Bruce to understand. From then until only a few months ago Bruce had turned his back, thinking the beast inside him had caused this. At that moment, Adam thought they could still straighten things out later, but inside of Bruce there was chaos and he still had no recognition of Adam in any of his forms. Adam was soon shoved to the back of Bruce's subconscious and held there till the moments when Bruce lost control and Adam was forced back into the bright, pain-filled world and driven insane. There had been a lot of that going around. It had taken a long time to get some control when he was Hulk, but Adam refused to give up. It took ten years, but eventually with some help from Strange, Bruce had finally recognized Adam again. Things were so much better now. "Yah, thanks, Gamma, for all of this. That's why you aren't exactly on our Holiday Card List," Adam said to no one in particular.

It wasn't like he was going to visit Smaug under the mountain or Loki or Hannibal in his cell, but getting answers wasn't going to be easy. He needed to be smart in the way that Natasha was when she read other people. He needed to be wise and not screw things up—that kind of ruled out being like Tony—maybe Thor, Son of Odin? He needed to think strategy like Steve and be as practical as Clint. Tony was clever yet compassionate, he'd need to be that, too. Yah, this could be epic he thought as he folded his arms across his chest. _Right, cue the music_ , he thought. Adam grinned and imagined a Yellow Brick Road stretching out in front of him and laughed. Okay, that was entertaining, but he lacked a dog and he didn't feel like dropping a house on someone for a pair of shoes. He doubted he'd be finding any companions looking for something either, but it was more fun than flying off into a void that didn't seem to have an end. He stretched his arms above his head and imagined his shoes were red and his shirt turned a blue and white checked weave, and he started walking down the road and the countryside filled out before him in Technicolor. He whistled an appropriate tune from the film and two ravens landed in a tree as he passed.

"You go," one of them said to the other and flew off. The remaining bird cocked its head speculatively and flew down to land on the fence beside the road next to Adam.

"I'm here to keep an eye on you," it said.

"I could use that," said Adam.

"Good, but whatever you do, don't call me 'Toto'," the bird warned and hopped to Adam's shoulder.

"Wouldn't dream of it. What should I call you?"

"I've had many names, but 'Raven' is fine."

"Okay, at least it fits—quite iconic, in fact."

"You talk a lot for a big green rage monster."

"I was going to say the same about you, except the part about being big and green. Can you carry a tune?"

"Better than a crow."

"Good, then help me sing or don't complain." As it turned out, Raven did have a passable singing voice and it knew the musical as well as he did, which pleased Adam to no end as they went off to find the Gamma.

((o))

Bruce awoke with an uneasy feeling like he'd slept too long or missed something, but he felt Natasha's arms were still around him and his happiness soon crowded out the other feelings. He smiled to himself when he realized she was snoring slightly. He had only napped an hour, but he felt better than the first time he woke up. He guessed his batteries had finally topped off. Bruce could feel his body respond to the rest; he could also feel something building. It started in his center, along his spine, and it was warm and flowing outward to his limbs and even into his head. It washed over him like a wave that didn't really recede so much as sink into him. It felt odd, but otherwise didn't seem to bother him.

Although it might not be a good idea to startle her, Bruce turned gently toward his bed partner, and Natasha stirred slightly and adjusted herself to his new position and laid her head on his chest as he brought his right arm around and behind her head. She was so beautiful. When she was awake, her face could be such a blank, pleasant slate that was as impossible to read as a china doll. Here at rest, her mouth was more animated and less guarded as she smiled in her sleep. He wasn't sure what she was dreaming, but he lay there watching her for several minutes until she awoke with a slight start and lay still and quiet, assessing the situation. "I love you, Natasha," he said, and he could tell she was laughing as she went for his ribs. "AAAAaaaa! I've been ambushed by a merciless spy in my own bed," he squawked out as he playfully went for her armpits. However, she was faster and had him rolled onto his back while she straddled his hips. Natasha grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the pillow above his head as she grinned impishly. "You've got me," he said. "Now what do you plan to do with me, Ms. Romanoff?"

"Oh, I've thought of several things I'd like to do with you, Dr. Banner," she said as she leaned in to nibble at his right ear. He began to squirm, thrusting his hips to distract her. "Oh, my, you're a lively one," she said, and kissed him on the mouth. Without his beard in the way, they both got aggressive, and she took his lower lip between her teeth and teased him before letting go and returning to kissing him along his jawline on the left side. Bruce arched his back suggestively and rolled his hips to meet hers. Natasha brushed her lips across his ear and he shivered, letting out a low moan to please not stop. Next, she sucked at his earlobe just as he had hers earlier, taking her time since he was so obviously enjoying it. Natasha was a bit surprised at how turned on he was getting, but she'd found that people often liked to receive what they'd given. At least it was a good place to start. She'd also noted in the past that Bruce avoided casual touching (probably as part of his condition and the ASD), so to see him like this writhing beneath her wanting more was a pleasant surprise and a heady turn on for her. There were definitely some kinks at work here.

When she mouthed the side of his neck, he bit his own lower lip, "Oh, fuck! Oh, Nat. Please keep going."

"Would you like me to do something specific?" she whispered in his ear. "Is it my turn to mark you?" she suggested.

"Yes!" he answered eagerly. "Anything you do will be gone in a few hours, so mark me as much as you want."

Definitely a kink, she thought, but it was a mild one she could happily get into as well. Natasha finally released his wrists and he brought his hands down to stroke her thighs. He grinned up at her. "Where do you want to start?" he asked, his eyes dilated and dark with excitement. She took his left arm by the forearm and had him straighten it out at a 45-degree angle on the bed to expose his pulse points from his wrist up to is arm pit. Whereas he had gone immediately for the most sensitive pulse points on her legs at the groin, she started with his inner wrist, leaning over him to suck and bruise a chain of dark pearls up his arm. He moaned with pleasure as her lips and tongue did their rough magic, getting slowly closer to his inside bicep. Bruce used his free arm to stroke Natasha's back and ran his fingers through her hair as he pushed it gently back from her face. "I love you, Natasha. I wish I could explain how good this makes me feel. I want to be yours so much."

"You're mine, Bruce. All mine," she assured him. "No one comes between us from now on. I've claimed you. We're together," Natasha said as her voice became husky. She knew she'd hit the right note when he drew her to him and kissed her hungrily on the mouth again.

"You are so sexy when you say that," he said after they separated to catch their breaths. "I'd say we should follow this through, but we probably need to get things cleaned up and ready to clear out."

"We have enough time for this last one," she said and gently turned his head to the side to expose his neck. Natasha picked the spot above the artery on the right side and bit down firmly, but not enough to break his skin. He took in a sharp breath as he was caught by surprise at the feel of her teeth, but then he relaxed into it. She intended to mark him good and dark, so she took her time sucking hard and chewing just a bit as he moaned beneath her. He ran his hands up her flanks and back holding her close.

Once she was finished marking him, Natasha lay on his chest, enjoying the feel and smell of him. He had such a pleasant muskiness and a sweet almost vanilla . . . no, burnt sugar undertone, which she breathed in contentedly. Bruce ran his fingers through her hair, feeling nothing but bliss. She ran her hand across his chest and stroked the trail of dark hair down his stomach. She laughed, "We forgot to eat lunch."

"I think we were a little busy," he said. "Well, we'll have some serious tea time then. There's stuff we'll have to eat or let the cleaning crew dispose of tomorrow."

Natasha rolled off him and stood up to stretch, smiling at him. By this time tomorrow they would be in their new big bed that Tony had insisted on engineering to specs that could have supported an elephant or two. She turned on the light in the bathroom and Bruce came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her as she looked into the mirror.

As she studied their reflection, she froze for a moment and then stepped slightly away so she could turn around to look at him closely. "Turn you head, Bruce," she said as she looked at him in the light.

He complied, "Why is something wrong?"

She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. "At first I thought it was just the lighting in here, but your hair has started to darken up. It's still salt and pepper, but there's less salt to pepper now than when I cut it."

"Are you sure it wasn't just darker underneath? Maybe I just got some sun and it bleached the top layer out a bit."

"No," she insisted, "I'm tempted to go through the trash and show you the difference."

"That's okay," Bruce returned. "I believe you, but I'm not sure how it would have happened this fast. In a month or two, there might be a difference, but not one in just hours."

"You do heal really fast," she said as she took his left arm and held it out. The first bruise at his wrist was already yellowing at the edges and starting to fade and so on up his arm. "Wow, you have a rainbow," she smirked.

"Thank you, I think they're lovely. I admire your artistry and craftsmanship," he said with mock seriousness. He leaned closer to the mirror and looked at his hair. "Geeze, you're right, but I have no clue. I couldn't just grow more that fast, could I?"

"I think I'm going to go check in the attic for an aging portrait of you," she teased, which got Bruce to laugh.

"Let's make sure your hair isn't turning gray first," he said.

"Okay, I had to think about that for a second, but I do know the Next Gen episode, and I will kill you if that's the case," Natasha said matter of factly.

"I believe you and I wouldn't blame you if I was harming you like that," he said.

"I know you wouldn't hurt me. I've been impressed with all the planning you put into neutralizing the radiation and working around it."

"I have to, Nat," he said as they embraced.

"You are so warm," she said and reached up to touch his forehead. "I think you might be feverish."

"I always run just a bit hot," he said with a smile, but she already had her phone off the nightstand.

"Well, 99.75 degrees. That is more than hot."

"I normally run about 99. I have radiation hanging out in my body. It has to do something to me," he teased.

"So you're saying we can be naked in bed and I can put my cold toes on you?"

"Well, if you warn me first, I'm fine if you want to lay all over me," he said, raising an eyebrow, but then he got more serious. "Hey, that reminds me. There is one thing I forgot to mention. I know we had to do it for the camera this morning, but I really don't like hitting. It just brings back too much from my childhood."

"Oh, crap," she said. "I don't know why that didn't register when we planned it out. I am really sorry, Bruce." She reached up and touched his jaw where her hand had left a mark that had faded hours ago.

Bruce gave her a lopsided smile, and he rubbed his cheek into her palm. "It's okay. I can take a punch, but I'm not sure how the Other Guy might take it, even if it's done in play."

"Got it," she said. "We probably ought to go over some bedroom protocols anyway, so we each have some idea what the other is comfortable doing or not."

"I obviously have some limitations," he said. "I won't hit you. I couldn't bear that. But we can talk about other things you're up for."

Natasha noted he blushed a bit. "I think it's safe to say, we both like it a little rough. Think about it. We'll have plenty of time to talk it over when we get home."

He smiled at her, "Home—that sounds really, really good. Let's get the bedding into the laundry, and fix something to eat."

"Sounds good," she said. "I brought you some new uniform pants that Tony has been working on. You might as well give them a wear."

"If it makes him happy and they don't say 'STARK' across my ass," Bruce joked, "I'm game. The three I brought with me have seen a lot of wear."

"Are any of those clean? I think we may need them if there's going to be a decoy," she added.

"Decoy? Is that really going to be needed?" Bruce asked.

"It's just a precaution, but right now it's not a bad way to draw off any unwanted attention."

"As long as no one gets hurt," Bruce added as he handed her one of the sets of purple uniform pants. The new pair she handed him was darker, but still had a purple cast to them. Like the others, the underwear was built in, so he slipped the pants on and looked in the mirror. They were dressier and rode a bit higher at the waist. There didn't appear to be an Avengers logo either. Bruce guessed Tony had designed them to go with a dress shirt and jacket. That got a chuckle out of him. He had those very things ready to go on the closet door.

((o))

They had their four bags lined up in the kitchen with plenty of time to go when Natasha received a coded text. "It looks like we should expect a quinjet anytime now," she said. "And they'll bring the decoys and a cycle with them."

"Who are the lucky couple?" he asked.

"Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter volunteered," Natasha said with a snort. She knew Bobbi well, but had only met Hunter once before they'd broken up. Now they seemed to be back together and the "man of fortune" was working with S.H.I.E.L.D. on a regular basis. "Have fun, kids!"

"Well, I'm sure they'll lead whomever on a merry chase."

"I hope." She checked her watch again. "Let's go ahead and get in place." They gathered up the duffle bags and took the stairs down to the cellar. Bruce checked to make sure the incinerator had done its job on the "biological hazards" before showing Natasha the trick to moving the shelves to reveal the tunnel to the back of the property. After re-securing the entrance, they headed down the much more modern tunnel with its white tile walls and industrial lighting. The tunnel ended in steps and a blast door with a number pad. Bruce keyed in the code and the door swung out to reveal the interior of a small outbuilding with odds and ends of equipment taking up half the floor space. "My, how authentic," Natasha said as she looked at the engine parts strewn across a workbench.

"I'd be more impressed if they actually fit together," Bruce laughed as he set his bags down. "There are parts from at least four different types of engines there, so it's all for show."

"Did you figure that out from looking or did you try and put them together first?"

"I just had to look at the sizes of parts to see that."

"We should be down to about ten minutes," she observed, leaning back against the edge of the bench beside him.

"Plenty of time for this then," he said as he leaned in and kissed her cheek.

She brought her hands up to the back of his neck and pulled him in close, "I'm going to leave lipstick on you, Dr. Banner. It'll be scandalous. They'll find us here sucking face."

He grinned, "Snogging, you mean. We are still in Great Britain."

"Shut up and kiss me," she ordered, and he did so with enthusiasm.

Several minutes later, they heard the quinjet finally approaching. They giggled, feeling a bit giddy now that the moment had arrived, and cleaned the lipstick up off of each other before they headed to the door to watch the jet set down. Natasha had a couple of firearms at the ready, but she didn't pull them yet. As the engines powered back, the hatch door to the lower level cargo area opened up at the front of the jet and someone in black leather wheeled out a Harley of the same model as Steve's motorcycle. Natasha recognized Bobbi, so she went ahead and opened the door and led the way out. Although Bobbi was taller than Natasha, she was wearing a lookalike to her Widow's black leather cat suit, so with a helmet on, she would probably pass. Natasha gave the taller agent a quick hug and pulled out Bruce's pants to hand to a slim man with brown hair and a scruffy beard. He smiled and waved at Bruce before heading back up the ramp to sit down and slip into the pants over a tight fitting pair of jeans. The engines were still too loud for Bruce to hear well, but as he stepped closer to Natasha, she introduced him to Bobbi and he shook her hand and shouted a thank you. He lip-read "No problem."

Hunter soon returned wearing the right pants on top and his boots and a leather jacket of Bruce's from the tower. They seemed to have thought of everything. Hunter approached and leaned in to say, "I just wanted to tell you what an honor this is, Dr. Banner."

"What, impersonating me?" Bruce asked as he shook the Brit's hand.

"Yes," Hunter said with a grin. "Leo Fitz will be positively green with envy!"

"You have got to be nuts, but thank you for risking your life, Hunter."

"All in a day's work," the agent replied, still smiling. Obviously, this was going to make a terrific war story one day.

"Here," said Bobbi and she handed Hunter his helmet and put on her own, too.

Bruce and Natasha said their thanks and the two agents mounted the bike. Bobbi kicked it into a roar they could all feel and hear above the idling jet. Bruce thought if one didn't know about the size discrepancy between the two women, the larger Harley helped camouflage it quite well and the clothing sold it along with Bobbi's attitude that mimicked Natasha's confident swagger. In a few moments the two motorcyclists were in motion and headed down the path to the field's front gate.

Natasha picked up her bags again and they headed to the rear of the jet as the front hatch closed once they cleared it. The back hatch was already down and an agent in a black tactical suit offered her a hand with the bags. Bruce froze in recognition and Natasha yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK!" so loud it was quite audible over the noise. If she hadn't been carrying the two duffle bags over her shoulders, Bruce was pretty sure she would have broken Phil Coulson's jaw. Lucky for him, Coulson turned with the punch, so he wasn't completely staggering when she hit him with both bags in the gut. That knocked the air out of him (one had to be full of guns and ammo), but the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director kept his feet as she stalked by speaking Russian in such an intense way that Bruce didn't need or want a translation. He stopped to check and see if Coulson was okay, and the older man waved him off. "I completely deserved that," he said. Bruce followed him up the ramp and the hatch closed behind them. Bruce was relieved to see Clint was in the cockpit and talking to Natasha. He quickly waved to acknowledge Bruce, but kept talking to her, apparently explaining he'd just found out for certain about Coulson when he was picked up not that many hours ago. They'd been on radio silence, so he couldn't give her a heads-up. From her body language, Bruce could see Nat was having none of it.

Bruce stashed his bags in the same bin where Coulson was stowing the other bags. This time, now that they could hear each other without shouting, Bruce insisted Coulson let him take a look. Like Bruce, he had bitten his tongue and it took a few minutes to stop bleeding after Bruce made him bite on some cotton gauze from the first-aid kit. "She got me with an open palm this morning, and I did the same thing," he told Coulson.

"Yah, I saw that video. You'd think I'd be smart enough to know what her reaction would be," he said shaking his head.

"Looked to me like you wanted to get it over with," Bruce said with a raised eyebrow.

Coulson gave him a painful smirk and a shoulder shrug in reply.

They were all soon strapped in with Natasha talking to Clint up in the copilot's seat for the first hour of the flight. Bruce and Coulson talked for a bit and Bruce explained what the therapy team was planning for the treatment sessions. They also speculated on some details about the party who had attacked them at Bear Lake and discussed what Bruce was hoping to accomplish with the Reconciliation Process.

Eventually, Natasha came back and traded seats with Bruce, so she could finally talk to Coulson, and Bruce went up front to get out of their way and talk to Clint. "Before you ask, I did not know about Coulson till he picked me up, which was not that long after Laura and I talked to you. I thought I was going to be the surprise, but noooo here's Phil on my front porch. By the way, nice hair cut, and yes it is darker than it was."

Bruce just bit his lip and chuckled quietly because Clint sounded like Natasha had really grilled him and he had downed one too many Red Bulls. "It's okay. I wasn't going to give you a hard time. I'm just waiting for her to find out I knew back in May and promised not to say anything. Didn't you two have this put together two years ago?"

"Yah, we did, but no one wanted us to push it, so we thought he was vegetative or convalescing, not directing after Fury went into hiding. Well, anyway, I warned him Nat was going to clean his clock, but he wanted to take his medicine. Idiot."

At this point, Bruce would have given about anything for his headphones and his music deck because no matter how hard he and Clint tried to chitchat and ignore the other two occupants, they couldn't help but catch parts of their conversation, especially Natasha's remarks.

"Do you know how it tore up the rest of us? It about killed Clint, especially after the mind control and all the psych evals he had to go through. He was a freaking basket case for months. I can't believe he and Laura about renamed Cooper Philip for you."

Coulson's reply wasn't quite audible, but when Bruce glanced up at one of the cockpit mirrors, he could see how contrite the spymaster looked.

"I know you had to play things close to the vest, but why didn't you reach out?" She asked. "After I spilled all those secretes to the world, everyone but the rest of the team ran, including all my agency friends whom I thought hated my guts. Now, I find out it's because they were working with you and under orders to keep their distance. I didn't even get a chance to mend fences with Izzy before she died. UHHH! The more I think about this, the madder I get! Now, it's apparent you're playing footsy with Talbot of all people. He's a known associate of the scum who tried to fry Bruce's ass not three months ago."

"Let's not forget it was my ass and May's ass, too," Coulson finally said loud enough for Bruce and Clint to hear. "God knows I'm not perfect. I wasn't a perfect S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, and I've made my miscalls as a the Director, but you know full well that sometimes we have to deal with people we despise to keep the peace and to get at the bigger puppet masters. I'm not proud about how I treated you and Clint or the rest of the Avengers or several other people, but when you're in deep cover and trying to rebuild from the ground up, you have to think of the long-term mission and the greater good. Yes, it sucks, but I've been able to help more from the shadows than if I'd been resurrected and out front. I've lost people. This wasn't fair for a lot of people. I know I've put you through pain, but trust me, it helped save lives in the long run. I'm sorry. I'm trying to mend relationships now. I know and I understand why you're justifiably angry with me. I don't expect you forgive me, at least not any time soon. I know you'll have questions and eventually you might want to talk. I will be there when you're ready and also if you need something."

Bruce jumped when Clint poked him. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but Coulson had probably wanted all three of them to hear his apology. Before long, Natasha came back up front and sat down next to Bruce who'd moved to one of the bench seats so they could be closer. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"I've known Phil was alive since May, and I promised I'd not say anything unless you asked me pointblank," Bruce said. "I'm sorry, and I'm really glad to have this out in the open."

"All right, I guess I can forgive you. You're such a bad liar," she concluded and slipped her hand into Bruce's. He brought it to his lips and kissed her fingers.

"I promise, I won't do it again."

"Damn straight," she said and rested her head against his shoulder. He kissed her hair and they stayed like this for most of the trip back to New York City with the exception of when Natasha spelled Clint. Clint kept the jet in stealth mode until they circled and were ready to land. It was basically going to be a drop off and go, so they could minimize their exposure. Bruce was glad no one had suggested skydiving or dropping in on a rope.

In characteristic Tony fashion, the tower's upper floors were lit up and just to make things more obvious who was landing, the lights turned purple and green.

Natasha sighed, "I told him specifically not to do that." Bruce just shook his head. Some battles were not worth joining.

As the jet settled on the deck, they grabbed their bags and said good-bye to Clint and Coulson. "If it's any consolation," Clint said, "Tony still doesn't know."

"That does not make me feel better, Barton," Natasha deadpanned.

"I don't think Thor knows unless Lady Sif has told him," Coulson offered, trying to lighten the mood a bit. "Steve doesn't either."

Natasha snorted then rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'm sick of this already," she said and she finally hugged her old mentor. "I'm glad you're alive."

"I _am_ really sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have let it go on for this long. I was trying to protect people at first, and then it just seemed like being silent was the kinder thing to do."

"I'm still really mad, but we're going to keep talking," she said.

"Yes, we will," Coulson said with a solemn nod.

As the hatch opened, they could see Tony and Pepper waiting at the entryway. As soon as the ramp was down, they hurried to meet the other couple. Bruce dropped his bags and embraced his friend who was pointing at Phil with an "Ah-ha!" look on his face. "We'll tell you later, Tony. They can't stay," Bruce explained. After plenty of back patting and a few manful sniffles, they parted enough to look at each other.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Bruce said, his voice thick with emotion.

"Hey, it's okay. You're really home now," he said as he gave Bruce another tight embrace that he returned.

"Right. You're not ready to kill me are you?" Bruce asked.

"No, we agreed Natasha could hit you a lot harder and not have you Hulk out. We're good," Tony said as he let go, but paused as he made eye contact and gripped the back of Bruce's neck so he wouldn't look away. "Please don't ever do that again unless you plan to take us with you."

"It's a promise," Bruce replied and patted Tony's forearm as he let go.

Pepper gave him a big hug, but was too emotional to say much, "It's so good to have you both home."

"Thank you, Pepper, for everything," he said and reached inside his jacket to retrieve the manila envelope with the cash and passports. "You can have these back. I'm not running anywhere."

She laughed, "Keep them. Maria helped me, but she would die if you said anything."

"And Laura?" he asked.

"She's the one who tipped us off."

Bruce nodded and pulled the passports and card out before he handed the envelope to her. "Barton family college fund if you don't want to keep it," he said.

Pepper smiled and shoved the folded envelope in her pocket. Tony and Natasha were talking excitedly. "Has something happened?" Bruce asked.

"They're okay, but Bobbi and Hunter were forced off the road before they got to the air port. Big van with a team of black ops. High tech weapons. Backed off when they figured out they weren't us and had backup," Natasha said checking her phone.

"They weren't hurt?" he asked.

"Just a few scrapes, and Hunter said you're not getting your pants or jacket back," Tony joked.

Bruce suddenly felt exposed if not vulnerable standing rather close to the edge of the landing deck with the bright lights proclaiming their presence. He picked up his bags, "Come on. I want to see what you've done to the place."

Tony's face lit up and he grabbed Natasha's bags without her objecting, "We'll look at the lab and the gym tomorrow, but you are going to love your suite. Nat wouldn't let me incorporate the whole floor, but I think you're going to like it. All sustainable wood and recycled composites!"

Bruce breathed a sign of relief when he saw Natasha clear the doorway and wave the jet off as the tower's deck staff brought the doors down and made sure they closed securely.

As Natasha caught up with them and took his arm, Bruce smiled at her before he turned back to Tony, "That sounds really great. I can't believe how much trouble you went to. I had a perfectly great apartment already."

"It wasn't that much trouble. You're worth it, my prodigal partner. Both of you are definitely worth it," Tony said as he turned his head and gave them both a wink and a happy grin.

 **End Notes:** Well, it looks like we're back to the present next chapter. I promise to answer the burning question: What is Goetta? We'll get to meet Bruce's cousin Rich and do some touring, too.

Let me know if you're interested in reading more of Adam and Raven's Big Adventure.


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary:** Part Two of Adam and Raven's Big Adventure. Bruce has breakfast with Clint and Tony. Bruce goes to Morning Prayers and meets up with Cousin Richard.

 **Notes:** Sorry, FFN has been giving a hell of a time posting this. I got the chapter done late, so all errors are on me, not Autumn_Froste! That's what happens on holiday weekends. We learn more than we need to know about Goetta, but we do have to have local Cincinnati color and cuisine. I owe a thank you to my hub who used to be a Vocational Deacon like Richard for fact checking me.

Christ Church Cathedral (ECUSA) in Cincinnati is real, but some of the details have been worked around to protect the innocent and not so innocent.

It's a very eclectic building and congregation, but I stuck to the chapel and part of the basement this week.

I have borrowed from The Wizard of Oz and the Book of Common Prayer. No harm intended!

 _Adam and Raven's Big Adventure, Part 2 . . ._

"Ravens are omnivores, aren't they?" asked Adam as he watched his companion start in on his twelfth and thirteenth cherries from one of the many roadside orchards they had passed.

The bird spat out the pits and nailed a dragonfly sitting on the next fence post with the last stone. "Yes, we're very opportunistic birds," it replied as it hopped over and crunched up the insect.

"Do you need to eat here, or do you just like imaginary fruit and smaller flying things?" Adam asked as he stood up and stretched after lounging on a shaded spot of grass beneath the fruit tree. He was still in his adult form and looking like Bruce's green-eyed twin.

"Kid, you've had me singing all morning. A bird has got to get sustenance somehow, right?"

"So, it's real to you?" Adam asked, feeling quite puzzled now. In his head and Bruce's, the objects didn't have real physical substance. You could pretend all you wanted, but they weren't even dust in the end. That's why Bruce couldn't take the picture Adam drawn with him, no matter how much they both would have liked for Natasha to see it.

Raven hopped a little closer on the rail to study Adam. "The need to eat is real to me, so yes, it's quite real." It cocked its head and looked him up and down for about the twentieth time. "Wait, are you saying this isn't real to you, Big Green?" the bird asked as it cleaned its shiny beak on its breast.

"It's real, but it's imaginary real, I could eat any of this," he gestured to everything, not just the cherries, "but I don't need to for any real reason. I don't get hungry or thirsty. The objects don't taste like anything, and they wouldn't make me feel any different because they aren't really there."

"Whoa, you are an odd duck," Raven remarked. "You're a resident of this level, yet you're not of it. I'm not sure if that's just your perception of your condition or if there's more going on there."

Adam puzzled over that for a few moments.

"By the way, most mortals dream about eating and other 'appetites'." Raven winked at him knowingly. Adam frowned. "Kiddo, you do have a very nice dream space, don't get me wrong, but usually people use and abuse these spaces to work out their frustrations from the day when they go to sleep. Yours is very . . . uh, orderly and pleasant compared to a lot of them."

"Well, I live here, why wouldn't it be a nice place? Bruce visits me, but he doesn't always spend his time here when he's asleep. He's never messed anything up while he's here either. He has his own headspace for that I guess."

"Stop, kid. Where do you think 'here' is?"

"My part of Bruce's imagination. Why?"

"Why do you say it's Bruce's and not yours?" Raven asked.

"Because it's in his head. Like, physically I live with him inside his head in his imagination."

Adam didn't know birds could sigh before today, and this one did it a lot. "So you don't think you're a separate being from him?" Raven asked.

"Yah, I'm a separate being, but I don't have a separate body," Adam replied. Did he have to keep spelling this out?

"Kid, your mind is separate. Why is this not your imagination?"

Adam had to think about that. "You're saying that we're in my imagination and not Bruce's, that we are not inside his head anymore?"

"Look, kiddo, borders here on the Astral Plane are porous, and just to make it more fun, they can overlap in odd ways. You may have started out in Bruce's head, but at the point you imagined beyond the void, you were on the Astral Plane. We've been skirting the edge most of the day," Raven tried to explain.

"Really, because, like I told you earlier, I'm supposedly searching out the places the Gamma radiation has been sequestered in Bruce's body. If that's not what I'm doing, I'd appreciate a little input."

"As far as I can tell, you're doing that. It's just that you're shortcutting through the Astral Plane, which is why I'm here."

Adam took a deep breath, "Let me try something." He raised his right hand and then his left like he'd seen Bruce and Tony do when they used the 3D display in the lab. Since he was his own Interface (and everything else), he didn't use verbal commands as a 3D map of their route appeared in the air between Adam and Raven. A golden line curved and undulated slightly, but kept a mostly straight course.

The bird jumped back and hovered in the air before returning to the fence to stare at the image. "How did you do this?"

"Just like everything else here, I thought of it," Adam said with a frown. They might be on the Astral Plane and not in his or Bruce's head, but Adam knew he was most certainly in control here. He took a deep breath before going on with his illustration. This was not the time to lose his temper. "Now, here is our route. Here is the first spot where we'll find a high concentration of the Gamma," Adam explained as he touched a point that lit up green, just a little further along the same trajectory as the undulating golden path they had traveled. "Got it?"

"Okay, I see that's where we walked and where we're going, but it's very unusual that you could do this, just so you know that."

"I'm a freak of nature. What's new?" Adam groused.

"No, I'm only saying mortals never understand navigation here and between the planes unless they've put in years of study. On earth, only the Sorcerer Supreme and a handful of others can do this."

"Hmm, I'll try and remember and ask about that later. For now, could you show me what part is the Astral Plane? Can you outline it with your right wing?"

"Okay, I'm game," Raven said, and it fluttered along one side of the line and crossed it a few times.

Adam touched the red smear Raven had made and expanded it above and below with his hands to make it 3D. "Is this close?"

"If I hadn't seen you do that, Big Green, I would not believe it. You could expand it more this direction, but that's uncannily accurate."

"Let's try this then," Adam stroked a finger on the opposite side, and a purple area appeared and expanded. "Accurate?" he asked.

Raven fluttered around and over the image before landing on the ground and examining it from below. "This is Bruce or you?"

"Me, my imagination," Adam said without hesitating.

"Good, you're getting it, son," Raven croaked with satisfaction.

Adam added a blue brain-shaped image at the starting point that overlapped the purple and then a blue area surrounding the green point at the end. "Input?" he asked.

"Don't freak out, but think of this as a cylinder, and the two blue areas overlap," said Raven.

"No problem," Adam said and with hand gestures he reshaped the whole thing into a cylinder that was actually an oval shape instead of a perfect circle.

Raven didn't say anything for several moments, and it finally fluttered up to his shoulder, "I can see you're getting frustrated, but Adam, this isn't easy knowledge to incorporate. In fact, it can also be dangerous even in trained hands. Please don't let anyone else know you can do this except for maybe Strange."

"I think he already knows," Adam said as he flicked a finger at the map, and it turned into a miniature galaxy that collapsed in upon its self. Adam scrubbed his hand down his face to his chin. Having remained Bruce's twin, he needed a shave about now. Oddly enough, the stubble kept better time than a watch could. His head was starting to hurt and he wanted nothing more at this moment than to head back the way they'd come and hide under the dinette set. Fortunately or not, stubbornness ran strong in his Banner genes, and he'd said he'd find some answers, so he'd be damned if he wouldn't keep his word to Bruce.

Of course there were some important things Raven hadn't mentioned. One vital piece of information Adam had figured out on his own was if they did retrace their steps, they'd arrive back in Bruce's body at the same time they left it. To attain his goal, he had to move forward to reach the Gamma concentration inside Bruce at approximately two minutes after they had first left his body. The shortcut Adam had taken had nothing to do with actual physical space because it was one through time. Yah, the borders between the planes were porous all right. Try full of wormholes or wrinkles in time or boom tubes or whatever one wanted to call them. Adam couldn't see them per se, but if he chose to seek them, he knew he could feel their presence.

The more he thought about this, Adam's stomach started to clinch as he considered the Pandora's box of possibilities this opened up for getting into deep, deep trouble on a grand scale. He seriously considered going back and telling himself not to do this, but that might create a paradox, and it would definitely give away that he knew what he'd found. He finally took a deep breath and asked himself, What would Natasha do?

"Hey, you okay, Big Green?" Raven asked, looking a bit concerned.

"Yah, let's get going. We're almost there, Bird Dude," Adam said with a grin and started singing the Scarecrow's part to their road song.

I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers

Consultin' with the rain.

And my head I'd be scratchin' while my thoughts were busy hatchin'

If I only had a brain.

I'd unravel every riddle for any individ'le,

In trouble or in pain.

"Aw, you stuck me with Dorothy's part," Raven complained.

"Suck it up or I'll sing that, too," Adam laughed.

The bird cleared its throat, "With the thoughts you'll be thinkin' . . ."

((o))

Back in the present . . .

Bruce awoke long before the sun was up, mostly because his stomach was growling. That wasn't terribly unusual when he'd Hulked out the day before, but usually he could sleep for a good ten to twelve hours, too. Without Natasha to anchor him while he slept, he'd ended up almost perpendicular to where he'd started with his head on a too fluffy pillow in the very big bed. Now, he was without a pillow and his torso was wrapped tightly in the sheets at the foot of the bed.

"You're hungry," Adam noted. "Are you going to show Tony and Clint what Goetta is?"

"Good morning, Adam. Maybe after l clean up. First, I have to stretch some kinks out." Bruce untangled himself from the bedding and rolled to his feet with a bit of a groan. What a day that had been! His head was spinning with thoughts, but most of them were really good and happy ones.

He'd left the yoga mats out on the floor by the Windows to flatten, so he went through his morning sets of stretches that were mostly yoga poses book-ending breathing exercises and jujitsu forms. He'd gotten very eclectic over the years, but it kept him from getting bored. He planned to do some meditating at the Cathedral later, so he got in the shower and let it hit him in face for a bit to clear his head of a few cobwebs. A BABY. We are going to have a BABY. If he was going to take a one-day shaving holiday, today was the day, so that shortened down his routine. Although he was happy not to have to drag the razor over his face, it reminded him of why he didn't need to shave, so he took a moment to text Natasha a good morning. He doubted she'd be up yet, but one never knew. Natasha Banner had a nice ring to it or Natasha Romanoff Banner sounded good, too. Maybe she'd hyphenate it? As long as she was his, it really didn't matter—even if she didn't want to change her last name.

No text came back immediately, so Bruce pulled out another set of the TechUWear pants and leggings and selected a shirt with three-quarter sleeves since he'd be outside with Rich for part of the day doing some walking. The weather was going to be fair and unusually mild for February, so he could wear the lighter-weight coat, too. Bruce put on the pants and the leggings in the right order this time and then the shirt. As much as he hated to admit it, these pieces were comfortable, and as they adjusted to his contours, the webbed fabric breathed and wicked better than anything he'd worn before. If it weren't for the data protection issues and annoying software, which had just pinged on his phone (and probably Tony's, too), he'd give these a thumbs-up so far, even though the one shirt did tear when he expanded yesterday.

"Yah, you still have a nice butt," Adam said brightly as Bruce watched the clothing adjust and change color in one of the full-length mirrors.

"Thanks for noticing," Bruce said sarcastically as he pulled on the pair of jeans and the sweater he had on briefly the night before. He had to hunt for his walking shoes, but he eventually found them. "Okay, Adam, what am I forgetting?" he said aloud as he patted his pockets to locate his cell and his wallet and then looked around.

"Glasses?" Adam suggested.

"Right," he said as he spotted them on the nightstand and retreated to the bathroom to clean them.

"Why are you still wearing them? You haven't needed glasses for a year or better and you play with them more than you remember to put them on," Adam pointed out.

"I know," Bruce sighed as he switched back to an internal dialogue. "They've become Linus's security blanket, and they give me something to do with my hands. I don't have a better answer than that."

"Most people would be really happy to not need them. I'm pretty sure 'Tasha and Tony have picked up on it already. If you're worried about people at large finding out you healed yourself, just say you had the corrective surgery. No biggie."

"You know I don't lie well, and I don't like to do it in the first place. Karma, Adam, will eventually bite you in the ass. Trust me on that." Bruce set out his coat to grab later and checked for his plastic key card. "Okay, I think I have it all together. Joseph was telling me the buffet is a floor down, and he said they've had Goetta every morning so far. I'm surprised you don't remember it. Mom didn't fix it too often because Dad only had coffee and toast for breakfast, but Grandma Walcott would cook it if we stayed overnight."

"Okay, I remember her. She was tall and wore an apron everywhere but church, right?"

"Yes, she made me cookies without the chocolate chips, and she put the heels from the loaf of bread in the cookie jar to keep them soft," Bruce remembered. "I haven't thought of that in a long time." Bruce brought out his phone and texted Tony that he was going down to breakfast before heading out to meet Rich at Christ Church Cathedral. He planned to be back between noon and 1:00pm. His phone pinged before he had it back in his pocket, and Tony texted he'd meet him down by the buffet in a few minutes and to please make sure the coffee was fresh. Bruce chuckled at that one. He knew Clint was already up by six, so he'd go see if he was there first before texting him.

"Adam, I'm sorry. I'm being really rude this morning. I'm just not used to having you this present and available. How was your night and how are you this morning?"

"Don't sweat it, Bruce. I'm just kind of hanging out. Since I was so wiped last night, I thought I better take it easier today," Adam said.

"That's probably a good idea. We're going to see a lot, so there will be plenty to take in if you want. Do you remember Rich at all?"

"Oh, yah, he's one of the fun cousins. He was always pretty nice to you. You two explored a lot of lighthouses when the Walters and Walcott cousins vacationed up at Lake Erie," Adam remembered.

"Right, you've got it," Bruce was pleased Adam remembered Richard who was the son his mother's brother William. His cousin was six years his senior, but he'd helped pull him out of his shell whenever he was around. For a boy whose father ignored him, the attention from an older cousin meant a great deal. After his mom had died and Bruce had gone to live with his Aunt Susan Banner, they had taken a couple of other trips up to the lakes with the Walters and the Walcott families, but it had been a reminder to the adults of just who was not there. Bruce was ten and Rich was sixteen during the last trip the families took together, so Richard had started driving and paying a lot more attention to girls. Although Rich had made a point of spending time with Bruce, the younger boy could tell his more mature cousin had a lot of other things he'd rather have been doing. From that point forward, Bruce had spent more time with Jennifer and the other cousins who were closer to his age, even if they were girls. He'd seen Rich a few times at holidays, but that was it since there had been some kind of falling out between the adults that Bruce had never quite figured out. Richard had served his twenty years in the Air Force before retiring from the military and working for a contractor for another ten. Eventually, he'd felt the calling and went to the diocesan seminary and become a Vocational Deacon in the Episcopal Church. His current ministry was helping run the cathedral's food program. When he had seen Bruce on television during the Battle of New York, he managed eventually to contact his younger cousin through Stark Industries, and they'd kept in touch ever since with a few breaks when Bruce was off the grid.

As he thought of his cousin, Bruce had headed to the elevator. The sun wasn't supposed to be up for another couple of hours and everything was pretty quiet until the elevator door opened on the floor below where more crew were staying. There were people in the hall carrying coffee cups, so Bruce followed his nose down the corridor to the open area where the food was set up. He quickly spotted Clint finishing up at one of the tables with a couple of people Bruce recognized as retired S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents he'd met the previous evening. They said good morning as they left. Clint waved him over, "Bruce, this stuff is scrapple, right?"

Bruce sat down. "It's a close cousin to Pennsylvania scrapple and the Carolinas' liver mush. The Germans here used cut or sheered oats instead of corn meal to bind together whatever meat scraps they had, cooked it all together, put it into a pan to let it set up, and they sliced it and fried it like bacon or sausage. Did they get it good and crisp because that's the best way to have it?"

"They didn't do too bad," Clint said. "Still, I'm going to be pretty surprised if you manage to convince Stark to even try it."

"What can I say, I try to educate the guy," Bruce said with a shrug. "So what are you doing today?"

"I'm walking you to wherever you're going and making sure the high ground is clear while you're there," Clint replied with a pleased smile.

"Are you following us on the walking tour?" Bruce asked.

"Yah, although this is the first I've heard of it," Clint said, not missing a beat.

"I think we're going to the park on the river bank and maybe across the Roebling Bridge and back."

"You're doing this on foot?" Clint asked.

"As far as I know. My cousin Rich planned it, but he didn't give me the gritty details," Bruce explained. "It's really not that far, but there's a lot of open space and not many roof tops past a certain point."

Kayla approached with two cups of coffee and set one down for Bruce who was quickly up on his feet and holding a chair out for her, "Thanks, Kayla. Sit down. We're just talking, and I was waiting for Tony.

"Have you tried the Goetta yet, Kayla?" Clint asked with a grin.

Kayla settled in the chair next to Bruce, "I have and it's not bad."

Bruce smiled, "That's a very judicious way to put it."

"No, it really is okay. I've had fried mush before, so it's not that different, except the mush is sweet and the Goetta is savory," she explained.

Bruce sipped his coffee, "Well, the coffee is pretty good. Do you think I need to go warn anyone to put on a fresh pot since Tony is coming?"

"With all these coffee fiends, they're already brewing a new batch every fifteen minutes, so I think you're safe, Dr. Banner. Anyway, here he comes so it's too late to hide any bad brew now."

"Good morning. Something smells almost edible," Tony said as he hovered over Bruce's shoulder.

"The coffee is decent," Bruce said as he got up. "I'm still in chow deficit, so I'm not going to be shy. Kayla, how about you?"

"Been there and done it," she said as she got up, and Tony quickly pulled out her chair for her. "Thank you. I need to get your itineraries updated and sent. Have a pleasant day, gentlemen."

"Seconds, Clint?" Bruce asked.

"I'm tanked up. Grab me an apple to go. Will you?"

"Sure," Bruce said, and he and Tony drifted to join the small line at the end of the steam tables. "Are you ready for your presentation?" he asked Tony.

"All but scouting out the hall and testing the AV system," Tony said as he took a plate. "You're going to go see the long lost cousin this morning, right?"

"Yep, at the Episcopal Cathedral. Matins is at 7:00am, and I plan to be there." Bruce picked up a plate and scanned what was there. "Hey, grits! I've not had grits in a few years."

Tony looked back at Bruce, "You don't need to make up a grit deficit, at least not all in one morning."

"Carbs," Bruce said. He needed protein, too, but he was still craving plain old simple carbohydrates, which was a little odd this long after a Hulk-out. He had the short order chef doing omelets and eggs-to-order do four of them over easy before he found the fabled Goetta in browned crunchy strips that had just been replenished. Thank God, because they could get chewy if they sat around. He grabbed a Granny Smith apple for Clint at the end of the tables near the yogurt and dry cereals.

"Fruit?" Adam asked in his head.

"I'll come back for it," Bruce reassured him.

"Here, let me take care of the apple," Adam said. "Get Clint's attention."

"Okay," Bruce thought, and he called Clint's name. Before he realized what Adam planned, he had lobbed the apple nicely over the tables for an easy catch by the archer. Clint initially shot Bruce a surprised look, but then gave him a respectful two-finger salute.

Bruce smiled back like he'd meant to throw it, but inside he was sighing at Adam. "Please don't do that. You're a lot more coordinated than I am, and these folks will notice the inconsistency."

"Oops, sorry," said Adam apologetically.

"Okay, what fruit do you want to try? Don't say all of it or we'll both get sick."

"Get some of the fruit salad in the big bowl. You can tell me what's what," Adam said. Bruce was rather glad Adam had picked the fruit and not the pastries because that was one thing he had trouble passing up at home when he and Natasha walked past a bakery. He could blame that one on his mother who liked to pick up pazcki donuts before Lent and could always be persuaded to stop by the neighborhood bakery after school.

Tony had already sat down at the table with Clint, and he had a plate full of waffles with a lone slice of Goetta, which he had skewered on the end of his fork. "Barton says this won't kill me, but I want to see you eat some first, Banner."

Bruce put his napkin in his lap with a flourish and cut a piece of Goetta on his own plate. He stabbed it with his fork, popped it in his mouth, and chewed quite happily. He swallowed it and smiled, "Not dead yet, but you might want some mustard or something on it. My uncle liked it that way."

Tony looked like he was considering the mustard, but went ahead and bit the end off the piece on his fork. He chewed thoughtfully, "Not bad for fried oatmeal. Just don't be bringing out a haggis for lunch."

Bruce shook his head sadly, "And here I had the sword dancers booked and everything." He finally tucked into the food on his plate, which Adam found quite interesting despite the bland look of the grits and eggs until Bruce cut into the yolks. Adam was clearly as into the textures as the tastes and smells. The mouth feel of the grits amused him and the graininess of the Goetta was still another odd feel. Bruce kept shoveling food in till it felt right and mopped the last of the egg yolks up with his toast.

Clint sat there with his chin on his propped up fist watching Bruce with fascination. "I've seen you eat like that after every Hulk-out, and I still don't know how you put it all away."

"Well, the alternative is letting Hulk eat, and it would probably kill me when I changed back," Bruce reasoned.

"Thank you for that pleasant image," Tony said as he finished his last bites of waffle and washed it down with coffee.

Bruce was picking through the fruit salad and identifying the types of fruit for Adam who was cataloguing them for future reference. The kiwi went over big for several reasons—color, taste, and all the tiny seeds that he could crush with his teeth. The bananas were less ripe than the ones in the ice cream yesterday, but Adam thought those and the mangoes were both good. The berries he was pretty neutral about, but Bruce pointed out they really weren't in season and would be better when they could get them locally. No, they really couldn't get local bananas unless they were much further south, but the strawberries, blue berries, cherries, and peaches would make up for that.

Leaning in close, Tony asked, "You wouldn't be having a conversation going on in your head, would you?"

"Yes, we are, and Adam says, Good morning! to both of you," Bruce replied and looked up at Tony and Clint.

"He has a pretty good arm," Clint said with an amused smirk.

"That he does," Bruce said.

"Adam, I expect you and Barton to keep an eye on this guy because you never know what trouble Bruce will get into with a priest," Tony joked.

"Well, one time Rich did get me in trouble for locking my cousins in the campground shower house," but I don't think we'll have a chance to do that today," Bruce admitted. He checked his watch. "Well, we have about a half an hour, Clint. Should I meet you in the lobby in ten minutes?"

"I'll be there," he said.

Bruce and Tony both got up and headed for the elevator. "Are you getting keyed up already?" Bruce asked his friend. He could already see that Tony was bouncing on the balls of his feet more than normal.

"I'm on to other things," he said. Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Nothing to worry about yet, but read through the morning briefing before you head out the door. There may be some protests, especially since the weather is unseasonably mild."

Bruce nodded. There had been protesters outside the tower in New York off and on since Sokovia. They had worked out protocols for judging whether or not groups and crowds were dangerous and took precautions to avoid confrontations, but here they didn't have nearly the amount of control over the situation they did at home. There had also been other groups of "professional" protesters who might make things much more dangerous than a few picketers with signs and a bullhorn. "Thanks for the heads-up. Are you sticking around here or heading up to campus this morning?"

"I'm going to be here for a bit and I may head up just to check the place out in the daylight. I'll be back here no later than 4:00pm for an early dinner if you're ready to tank up again," Tony said.

As they entered the elevator, Bruce wrapped his arms around his middle. "Don't read anything into this, but keep your suit handy. I've got a weird feeling," he mused.

"Something in particular?" the engineer asked.

"No, just an itch in the back of my head, and it's not Adam. You know, how it feels before a front comes through? It's a bit like that."

"Well, you're a bit ahead of the weather, Bruce, but I'll take it with me. Have a good time with your cousin."

"I'll do my best," Bruce replied. They both stepped off the elevator and headed back to their rooms. Bruce brushed his teeth as he scanned through the brief on his phone. Speculation about "professionally organized" groups with more than peaceful protests on their agenda. No city permits requested, so that limited their venues. Most likely to protest on campus, but Fountain Square might also see some action. "Lovely," Bruce thought. Now he needed to make an effort to blend in more.

Because he looked so different from the Hulk, Bruce wasn't used to being recognized on the street, but thanks to coverage of the World Court Hearings, Reparations, and Reconciliation being televised worldwide, he couldn't be nearly as anonymous as he once was. Now he really wished he'd gotten his hair cut shorter. He'd worn his glasses during the Reconciliation Meetings that were televised. Leaving them here was probably a good idea, so he swapped them out for his sunglasses. He'd brought a couple of hats, and he went with a plain knit one that covered most of his hair. The leather jacket he'd been seen in already, so he went with the naval pea coat he'd already laid out. It had a collar he could pull up if he needed, and it was as close to generic as he had. When he headed out the door, Bruce glanced at himself in the mirror. "Hey, sailor!" said Adam with a laugh.

Bruce snorted to keep from laughing out loud. "Yah, call me Ishmael and all that!" He checked his pockets one last time for his phone, wallet, and key card before he remembered he'd brought Rich something. He pulled the package from his luggage and wrapped up the last cigar with it. Finally, he headed down stairs to meet Clint in the lobby.

"Good," Clint said as he nodded his head with approval at Bruce's choice in attire. "I'm glad you read the briefing. You'll blend in better this way. Let's get moving and see if we can avoid the problems."

Despite the dark, Bruce remembered where he was going well enough since it was only a few blocks away. There were just a dozen or so other people out on the street, and they all seemed to prefer keeping their heads down and hurrying to their destinations. It was hovering at freezing so the puffs of steam from their breathing made clouds that trailed them as they covered the distance quickly. When they made the final turn onto the block where the Cathedral was located, they both slowed down because they saw an unmarked charter bus pulled over at the curb so their path on the sidewalk was between it and the church's buildings and property. As they got closer, Bruce glanced up at the darkened windows, but aside from the bus idling, there were no signs of people. Morning Prayers or Matins were in the cathedral's chapel, so they followed the signs and cut through a garden courtyard to the entrance.

"Have fun," Clint said as they reached the door. "Please keep your phone turned on. I'm going to keep an eye on the bus, and we've got other folks in position. Let me know if you'll be taking a walk or otherwise leaving the building."

Bruce nodded, "Thanks. See you later, Clint." Bruce opened the door and stepped inside the foyer. He hadn't realized there was so much noise outside until he entered the church. He checked his watch: five minutes to spare. This connecting hallway with the entrance was fairly new, so he followed the signs to the left and the hall gradually rose to join one side to the church campus to the other. Soon, Bruce was on familiar ground as he spotted the doors to the Gothic-style chapel. They were open and he could hear a harp playing as he approached. He could feel Adam stirring with excitement then holding very still to listen to a folk hymn medley that included several Shaker tunes. "Lord of the Dance" was the current one.

As Bruce got to the door, he paused a second to say his own prayer that everything today went all right. As he looked in, the chapel was mostly as he remembered it with the gray stone arches and high, narrow vaulted ceiling. It was shaped like a cross and was big enough to house most congregations. The flags from around the world that used to ring the upper level of stained-glass windows had been replaced and updated, but with much brighter and smaller-sized ones. That was good. Bruce had attended a few weddings and musical programs here and the old faded silk flags had stuck in his memory. One of his aunts said the person who donated them would have to die before they removed the tattered things, and Bruce had no doubt she was right. He tried not to smile as he thought of that. _God rest somebody's soul_.

Bruce had both Catholics on his father's side and Episcopalians on his mother's side in his family, but his father had been a staunch atheist who disapproved of his wife's faith more and more as the marriage fell apart. Bruce hadn't realized how much the conflict had bothered him until he drifted away in his very early teens and refused to go to mass with his Aunt Susan. He didn't understand how much it had hurt her until a decade later. His mother had not converted, but she'd made sure he was baptized in the Catholic Church because the Episcopalians would still recognize his standing while the conservative priest at the local Catholic Church wouldn't if he'd been baptized an Episcopalian. _Geeze, like it didn't take right the first time._ His father's family had definitely pulled some strings to get that done considering his family situation since it was a mixed marriage and his father had a reputation for being lapsed. Because it was done as an infant baptism, Bruce didn't remember any of it.

As he took a seat about half way down the aisle, but behind the other dozen or so people already seated there, Bruce looked up at the windows. They were predominantly trimmed in French blue and designed in a medieval style. However, the three exceptions were in gold, red, and green and represented Research, Invention, and Science. He counted off Newton, Darwin, Jefferson, Lovelace, Tesla, Carver, Sabin, Curie, and Turing who all had their places in the colored glass; frankly, Bruce could have thought of at least three times as many who should have been there, but these nine representatives stared down like old friends among the saints and Gospel stories. Early in life, science had become his religion, but part of him had left room for belief, even through his unhappy teens. He still disliked many things about organized religion, yet his journey had eventually made a long ellipse back. He couldn't say he completely understood forgiveness, even at this stage of his life, but he had felt it and he'd struggled with it. Grace was almost as hard to wrap his head around. Lately though, he'd experienced more of it than he probably deserved; yet, that was the point—it was there whether you thought you'd earned it or deserved it or not. He struggled with this a lot.

Bruce stared down at his hands and thought about the atoms that made them and how they'd come from stars. He thought about them expanding as the gamma flooded his bloodstream and the mass poured into him. The harpist plucked her last chord and Adam sighed. Bruce hoped she'd play again because Adam enjoyed it so much. He looked at the printed program he'd picked up at the doorway—maybe during the psalm and again at the end. It was hard to tell with Morning Prayer. THANK YOU, GOD. WE'RE HAVING A BABY. SHE'S MINE AND WE'RE HAVING A BABY.

After a moment of silence, the church bells rang out the hour and two priests entered from the chancel. The first was an auburn-haired woman, probably a little older than Bruce, and Richard was the tall bearded man behind her. Both had on deacon's sashes, so the liturgy would be a bit shorter than usual. When they reached the nave, everyone stood. The female priest sang out:

From the rising of the sun to its setting my Name shall be great  
among the nations, and in every place incense shall be offered  
to my Name, and a pure offering: for my Name shall be great  
among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

The next part was the confession and both priests turned to face the alter like the rest of the congregation. This time Richard led the group together. It was printed in the bulletin, but Bruce still knew it by heart:

Most merciful God,  
we confess that we have sinned against you  
in thought, word, and deed,  
by what we have done,  
and by what we have left undone.  
We have not loved you with our whole heart;  
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.  
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.  
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,  
have mercy on us and forgive us;  
that we may delight in your will,  
and walk in your ways,  
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Bruce always found himself dwelling on the part about _things done and left undone_. As someone who regularly sidelined himself for the greater good, that one always bothered him. While he was lost in thought, everyone was sitting down, so he did the same. The harpist, whom the bulletin identified as Helga, and "Deacon Vicki" intoned the Invitatory and Psalter then the Psalm. Adam thought this part was nice, but he'd rather get back to more folk hymns with just the harp.

Next, Richard read from Acts 7: 35-42, which covered the Israelites' impatience with Moses and how they fell away after 40 years wandering in the desert and worshiped the golden calf they'd made. _Oh yah, this will be fun to try and explain to Adam later_ , Bruce thought. Surprisingly, there were no comments from Adam then or after Vicki delivered a short sermonette on staying faithful and repenting once you'd recognized the error of your ways. After the Collect, Richard led them in "A Prayer of St. Chrysostom,"

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one  
accord to make our common supplication to you; and you  
have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two  
or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the  
midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions  
as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of  
your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

Bruce was surprised again when Adam said he recognized that part. Bruce liked the "Prayer of Mary" more, but decided it couldn't be sung every day without getting old. Vicki quickly concluded the service with the prescribed words: "Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God." Richard did the last part from the rear of the chapel: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore." Everyone answered with an enthusiastic, "Amen!" To Adam's delight the harpist started playing sections of Naderman's harp sonatas, while the small congregation greeted one another.

Richard quickly covered the distance between them and caught Bruce in a warm bear hug. "Oh, little Bru, it's been too, too long," he said in his deep bass. "I'm so glad you made it!"

"I know, Rich. Way too long," Bruce said as he returned the comfortable embrace.

Richard pulled back and held him at arm's length. "Still the same. We're just both a lot harrier and a bit grayer," he joked. Then the deacon turned to the rest of the people who were still there and obviously curious about who the stranger was and announced, "Everyone, I want you to meet my Cousin Bruce. The prodigal has finally returned to his home state for a visit."

Bruce could tell a couple of them recognized him for who he was, but everyone came forward and shook his hand without holding back. There were a few questions about how long he'd be in town and why. One older lady introduced herself as Maryann Holladay and asked if he was Rebecca's boy, and that caught him off guard. "Yes, mam. My mother's name was Rebecca Walcott."

"We sang in choir together when we were in high school. She was such a sweet and pretty thing. She had a beautiful singing voice, too. I could hear you in the back with the responses. The apple didn't fall so far from the tree," she said with a benevolent smile.

"So you went to Saint Anne's together?" Bruce asked in reference to the church his mother had grown up in.

"That's right. I was a couple of years ahead of her in school. The church is still there. You may have some cousins who still attend it. You'll have to ask Richard," she replied.

"I will. Thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you," Bruce said. By this point, most of the people had drifted off since they were largely church staff or volunteers or worked downtown. The harpist concluded her piece, so Adam sighed a bit again. Bruce knew how much Adam loved music, but he was pleasantly surprised at how well he was doing while tapping into his own senses. Bruce had feared there would be some sensory overloading, but Adam seemed to have achieved the right balance without much of a struggle. Now, if they could manage not to get him over-stimulated, things might run quite smoothly. Rich was helping Helga move the harp into a storage room off the nave. Bruce stepped over and offered to help, but the woman looked rather alarmed, so he backed off several steps. The last thing he wanted to do was cause someone distress, so he made sure not to block her from the exit and busied himself gathering up a few stray programs from the seats. He'd made a point of putting his back to her so neither of them would have to make eye contact. Sure enough, she scurried for the door without saying a word. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I really enjoyed your music."

"You're welcome," she said with her voice barely above a whisper as she left the chapel. "Both of you are welcome."

Bruce was a little puzzled why she'd said, "both of you." Richard walked up shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Bruce. Don't take it personally. Helga is a dear, sweet woman, but she's very old world in some of her beliefs. It takes a while for her to warm up to strangers."

"It's fine. I'm not offended. The Big Guy really enjoyed her music, too," Bruce said.

"I wondered," Rich said, looking at Bruce thoughtfully as he pulled the doors to the chapel closed but left them unlocked. "Hey, we've got a bit before the food pantry opens. I just have to make sure the volunteers show up and things are running smoothly before we take off. Follow me down to the catacombs and see my office." Bruce laughed and followed the taller man to a staircase off the choir loft that went down almost three floors. "Ha, you thought I was kidding about the catacombs," Rich said as they finally exited to an area with much lower ceilings and plastered walls. The signage pointed to the "Choir Room" and "Music Library" to the left, but Rich went to the right. At the end of the hall was a handmade sign with "Keeper of the Lauder" written in calligraphy.

"My, you are in the last possible place," said Bruce, looking around and shaking his head.

"We're actually right off the lower hall where the pantry is located, so we're pretty close to the action," Rich explained as he unlocked his door. "Come on in. I have something for you that Julia helped me find yesterday." The office was small and stuffed with just the desk and a couple of comfortable secondhand chairs and a bookcase. He motioned for Bruce to take a seat on the other side of the desk.

Bruce pulled out the package he'd brought for his cousin and laid it on the desk between them. "As requested," Bruce said with a smile.

"Terrific!" Rich said as he unwrapped the old-style Reds baseball cap with its white brim and horizontal stripes. Rather than trying it on, he placed it on the shelf behind him with several other pieces of baseball memorabilia. "That's perfect, Bruce. Thanks for tracking it down."

"Don't pitch the bag. There's something you'll enjoy in there," Bruce warned.

Rich sat back down and pulled the Cuban cigar out of the bag, "Whoa, where did this come from?" He smelled it. "This is real. What's the occasion?"

"Well, if you had included thanksgivings during Matins, I would have given thanks for getting to see my wonderful cousin, but there are a couple of other things I'm exceedingly thankful for."

"Spit it out, Bru! You're killing me."

"Natasha finally said yes."

"Congratulations!" Richard said as he stood up to shake Bruce's hand. "What did that take? Ten tries is the charm?"

"It seems like it was getting close to that," Bruce said, "but that's not what the cigar is for." Bruce watched the gears in his cousin's head turn.

"Get out. You are kidding me! No way. Wow, just wow." Rich sat there behind his desk looking stunned.

Bruce sat across from him enjoying his reaction. He finally leaned forward over the desk, "Congratulations, you're going to have a second cousin, Rich."

"How did this happen? Fertility specialists? Donors? Miracles?" the older man asked.

"We don't know for sure yet. Natasha didn't find out she was pregnant until after I left yesterday, so it's all too soon," Bruce explained.

"Oh my, so you'd just left. Well, that sucks. You're not going to get to see her till Sunday either. Sorry, Bruce."

"Yah, you're telling me," Bruce said with a humorless laugh.

"So, due date is what? Middle of September then."

"Second week, I think."

"Wedding before or after? I'm not judging or trying to drum up business, by the way."

Bruce blew out a breath and puffed his cheeks before he threw his hands in the air, "Whenever she wants. We've not been able to discuss it yet."

"Oh," Richard said as he caught on. "Do you like doing all the important stuff while you're out of town or are you just that star-crossed?"

Bruce shook his head, "You know I've always lived under a dark little cloud, Rich. But things are a lot better now."

"I can tell. You look so much happier, Bru. I guess those Yankees are treating you okay," Richard kidded.

Bruce nodded, "We just need to get through the Agreements. Once we've check off enough of them, we'll be able to travel again and see people without people checking over my shoulder. I've not been able to go see Aunt Susan of your mom in too long."

"Oh, where's my mind? I was going to tell you, Bru. We found your box. The one that Grandma Walcott had, which we thought was lost."

"What is it exactly?" Bruce asked, feeling quite puzzled since this was the first he'd heard about a box.

Rich took a deep breath, "This is kind of complicated, so bear with me. When your mom died and you went to live with your Aunt Susan, my mom and dad and your Aunt Elaine Walters were allowed to go into your house and get some of your things. Elaine packed up your clothes and a few odds and ends while Mom packed up some things I think you'll agree are more important now—things she knew you'd want one day." He turned around and pulled out a large box that had started out as a case for Girl Scout cookies from under his desk and slid it across the surface toward Bruce. "Mom wanted to keep this safe, so she had Grandma Walcott put it away because they were afraid what might happen if your father was released on bail. It turned out to be a good thing because they did release him for a while and he tore the place apart. Anyway, we'll talk about it later if you want, but the box got misplaced for a while and forgotten until we sold Mom's house and had to go through everything. That was about the time you had the accident, so again it was put away and forgotten until my sister Julia thought about it yesterday. God bless her! She called me and we dug it out of her storage room. Anyway, here it is. Open it!" Rich said as he handed the 18" x 18" x 18" cardboard cube to Bruce.

At one point, it had held Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies, so it had been sturdy enough to hold up all these years. Someone had written "Save for Bruce B." on two sides and the top with a marker. The tape on the box was so old that it pealed off as he lifted up on the edge of the top flaps. Inside was a black plastic bag that had a rusted twist-tie, which Bruce carefully removed. He folded back the bag's edges to reveal objects from his childhood and things that belonged to his mother. He could smell the rose and lilac-scented powder she used and memories came rushing back to him and Adam. Bruce closed his eyes and clutched the corners of the box as he let the memories wash over him and eventually settle down. He willed himself to calm his breathing, but it was difficult because Adam was extremely excited. _Calm down_ , he finally ordered. _We are not going to have an incident in this tiny office in front of Rich_. He counted to ten and Adam was back under control, but still full of anticipation.

 _Pick one thing at a time_ , he told both Adam and himself because he was feeling just as impulsive as Adam. He reached in and brought out a 5" x 7" picture frame. Actually, it was three frames that folded together like a triptych, so he opened it up. On the left was a wedding photograph of his mother and father holding hands and smiling happily into each other's eyes. Bruce shivered as he studied his father's face, which was young and amazingly untroubled. Bruce recognized some of his own features in the attractive countenance, but it looked so different from what he remembered of his father that he didn't quite believe it was the same person. His mother with her dark hair piled high on her head smiled up at her groom adoringly. Her simple white dress stood out in contrast to his dark suite and tie. She held a small bouquet of roses, lilacs, lily-of-the-valley, and baby's breath. In the middle fame was a picture of himself as a toddler sitting on a wooden rocking horse and holding his ragdoll Guardian. His chin was shyly tilted downward and he looked up into the camera with huge dark eyes and a half smile. He was wearing overalls and cowboy boots. His hair was cut short, but it was trying hard to curl on top. The third photograph was one of Bruce as an infant on his mother's lap. He was all rounded limbs, chubby cheeks, and dark eyes and curls. He was turned slightly to the side and smiling brightly up at her as she smiled down at him. Her dark hair was cut shorter and pinned back, but the real difference was around her eyes, which were now tired and a bit sad. Bruce wondered why his father wasn't in the portrait, but deep down he knew why.

Bruce looked up at Richard who was studying him with a sad, but hopeful expression on his face. "Thank you," Bruce said to his cousin. "I thought all the pictures were destroyed, so these mean a lot to me."

"Mom said there are more in there. She also saved your Baby Book. Do you want to stay here and go through things? I just need to check and make sure the volunteers are here."

"No, I want to go down with you and see what you do here," Bruce said. "I can look at these later."

"That's cool," Rich responded. "You can leave things here."

As Bruce was taking off his coat, his phone signaled a new text had arrived. Bruce laughed as he read it and showed it to Richard. It was from Natasha: _I love u and plan to throw up on your shoes as soon as u get back._ There was a puking green emoji to illustrate her point.

Richard laughed. "Oh, I don't miss that part of being a parent at all. Neither does Katie," he said as he thought about his wife and their two children.

Bruce texted Natasha back: _I miss you and can't wait to be puked on_. _50 hrs and counting._

"How is Kate?" Bruce asked as Rich held open the door and led the way to the Food Pantry.

End Notes:

If you want to know what the hey is up with Adam and Raven, ask and I'll answer what I'm able.

If you want to talk about why I think Bruce is where I put him on his faith journey or why I went with both a Catholic and Episcopal background or anything else related, just ask me something.

I've been wanting to explore Bruce's extended family for a long time. The comics only include his father's side with his fraternal grandfather (Bruce Banner) and unnamed grandmother (WT?!) having three children: Brian (Bruce's father), Elaine (Jennifer's mother, Bruce's aunt), and Susan (Bruce's aunt who raised him). We never even get a last name for Bruce's much beloved mother Rebecca, so I've given her the family name of Walcott and an extended family. Here's my attempt at a basic family tree starting with her parents:

William Walcott = Gelda Hoffmann (Bruce's and Richard's Grandma Walcott)

Rebecca (= Brian Banner)-Robert Bruce

Eugene (= Janet Roe)-Richard, Julia

Anna (= Michael Dean)-Michelle, Nancy, Olivia

Richard Walcott = Katherine Cook-Richard Jr., Glenn

Questions, comments, and conversations are so very welcome.

Next week: From the church to the tour of the river banks!


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary:** Not the Cincinnati chapter you were looking for . . . First, back to Natasha whose sleep on Thursday night did not go undisturbed-but in a good way!

 **Notes:** Yes, you should go listen to Moma Cass sing "Dream a Little of Me" before and/or after reading this. Many thanks to Autumn_Froste for beta duties and listening to my worrying about characters.

Chapter 44: Dream a Little Dream of Me

Natasha had been so tired, she'd barely gotten her teeth brushed before she staggered off to bed. She'd left Bruce's sweatshirt on and lay in his spot with his pillow. How was it possible to be so happy, yet so slightly miserable at the same time? She missed him to the point she physically ached. As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined Bruce holding her. Natasha thought about his breath on the back of her neck and his lips gently kissing her. She was sure he'd want to pull her close and stroke her stomach as they thought of their child growing there. _Just 58 hours . . ._

Natasha had wanted to carry those thoughts with her into her dreams, but it didn't quite go as she'd hoped. Tonight it was the cell in Sokovia, but it could just as easily have been the hospital blazing or the apartment building collapsing or the list went on and on. Tonight Ultron had a Darth Vader rasp to its voice as it backed her into a cell and slammed the door. She hunted through old junked equipment that included children's toys and fresh produce until she found a red-haired fashion doll in one of her cocktail dresses that said, "Hi, there. I'm Natasha, and I'm scared shitless by Tony's vibrainium id." She tossed that one to the back of the cell on a pile of green bananas. "I think what you want is over in the corner," said a Jiminy Cricket voice. She looked up and saw the voice came from a green ragdoll with long ears and a shock of yarn hair like a Mohawk or a horse's mane. She pointed and gave it a questioning look, "Over here?" It nodded its head. Sure enough, there were the radio components stacked in the corner next to the oranges and mangos.

"Thanks," she said to the ragdoll. "Have you got a name?"

"Big G," it said. "I'm not sure what it stands for. Are you okay? The robots are rather scary. I've counted over 200 of them."

"I'll be okay. I'm going to have my friends bust me out," she explained. "First, I need to contact them and tell them our location."

"I hope you have a lot of friends," it said.

"Enough to get this job done and stop the robots," she said as she started tapping out Morse Code. Clint answered her back. She was to sit tight and wait for them. Observe what Ultron's minions were doing, but don't engage them on her own. _Well, duh!_ "Okay, they'll be coming. Do you want to leave with us, too, Big G?" There was no answer. She looked for it, but the doll seemed to have disappeared. Then she heard Bruce's voice calling her name. She replied, but he seemed to be going in the wrong direction or his voice was echoing strangely off the curved stone walls. She thought she heard footsteps, but they didn't belong to an adult. She pressed against the bars, trying to see who it could be just around the corner. She was surprised to see a child climbing down the pile of rubble beyond the end of her cell. "Hey, there. Where did you come from?" she asked.

The child cleared the debris and looked up. He had dark curls and grinned at her in recognition, "'Tasha!" He was preschool or kindergarten age at the most, and he ran to meet her at the bars. "For you," he said as he held out a large iron key.

"Thank you very much. That's exactly what I needed. How did you get here, Mister?" she asked him, but the child just stood back and grinned, so excited and pleased with himself that he jumped up and down. She fitted the key to the lock and let herself out. He immediately ran to her and she scooped him up in her arms. "Where are your parents? I bet they're missing you, my big handsome rescuer." All he did was giggle in response then he reached up to touch her hair. She noticed he had the most beautiful green eyes, several shades darker than her own, but otherwise he looked so much like . . . "Hey, you know _my_ name. What's _your_ name, Mister?"

"Adam," he said and got shy, nuzzling his face into her shoulder. That sounded so familiar, but she couldn't place it. She could feel his heart beating wildly like a bird's, but then it slowed down as she stroked his back. He was dressed in overalls and a checkered shirt. "It's going to be okay, Adam." She looked around. Usually, it was Bruce who showed up about now to get her. Sometimes she left with him and the world ended or Hulk showed up and she pushed him into the pit and Bruce jumped out. _I adore you, but I need the Other Guy_. It never went right, no matter if she followed the script or not. This munchkin whose heartbeat, she noted, had now synced with hers was definitely a new twist. She soothed his dark brown curls back from his face. "So what's our next move, Adam?"

He wriggled until she put him down. The ground began to shake, parts of the ceiling started to crack, and stones and mortar began to fall. The child stumbled and Natasha missed her grab. The slab of rock they were standing on tilted and they slid toward the edge. "Momma!" he shrieked, and she grabbed his collar and straps, pulling him close as she rolled. There was nothing to grasp as they fell into the pit. She managed to wrap herself around him, cradling his head and twisting to take the impact on her back, but his arms slipped around her as he grew and twisted, using her momentum and his weight to accept the shock of the ground across his broadening shoulders. However, before they could even brace themselves, they were rolling on the floor behind the bar in the tower's commons room. At first, she thought she'd landed on Bruce, but as she tumbled off him, she knew he was too big to be her fiancé and he was obviously quite green. She breathed in the smell of apples and sage with the bitter undertone that had to be the Gamma. "Hi, Big Guy," she said as they both lay there on the floor, looking at each other as they recovered from the initial shock. She thanked her lucky stars there was no gunfire or rogue robots spouting Disney tunes this time. It was blessedly quiet, and they were alone in the commons room.

Hulk looked around, trying to get his bearings. He'd cleared the end of the bar before he fully changed and was now propped up on an elbow close to the fireplace. He was wearing the TechUWear suit Bruce had put on that morning. "Hi, 'Tasha," he said with a shy, apologetic grin as he scratched the back of his head and sat up. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be here."

Natasha shook her own head. This was definitely one of the weirdest dreams she'd had in a long time. She occasionally had the nightmare in which she pleaded with Bruce not to transition on the Helicarrier, but Natasha had long since figured out it was better to encourage him to relax and change as peacefully as he could. Thankfully, that had pretty much put an end to the chase dreams through the bowels of the Helicarrier. In real life, she'd spoken to Hulk when he was quite articulate before, but he'd never turned up in her dreams this way. She was sure this was a dream, but it was an unusually lucid one.

"So who is 'Adam' then?" she asked as she check herself for injuries.

"Uh, I am," he said, sounding a little sheepish. "Did Bruce talk to you this evening? He was supposed to mention me. We have met. The night you had the really awful nightmare and broke Bruce's windpipe, I was there to help wake you up. We talked then because Bruce gave me all the autonomy he could so I was able to communicate with you."

"I remember it well," she said, nodding her head, "but what are you doing here in my dream?"

"To be honest, I didn't intend to come into your dream. I was testing boundaries. Bruce told you the block that has been separating us is gone, right? Since this morning, we've been able to communicate while he's conscious." Adam looked at her, hoping to detect some sign of recognition.

"You're right. He did tell me right before we ended the Skype session," she said with a nod. "I just didn't expect to see you here."

"Well, I wanted to see what else might have changed, so I pushed a little on a boundary and thought of you then 'Boom!' I'm in your dream. Like I said, I'm really sorry. I should probably leave." Adam started to get up as if he could physically exit the room.

"No, wait," Natasha said. "As long as this isn't some Loki plot and you're telling the truth, we can talk. I hardly ever get to spend time with you unless it's on a mission, and we've not had many of those since Sokovia. It would be really nice just to talk. When did you start going by 'Adam'?"

"Late May. After we met Dr. Strange. Bruce suggested it because his, um, our mother liked it. He wasn't so hot on the idea of calling someone who looks to be six or eight 'The Hulk' either."

"You don't look six or eight now, but that was you with the key, right?"

"Right, those are some of my old forms. I tend to be the most comfortable with them," Adam said with a shy smile. "Anyway, I didn't want to weird you out, but on the other hand, I didn't think you would take me seriously if I looked like a preschooler or a doll." He looked at his oversized hands, "This is awkward, but you know me this way. You're not scared of me."

"Fair enough," she said and she got up and walked over to him. She held out her hands to help him stand up, but he waved her off with a grin as he rolled to his feet. "I've been wondering, is this what you would have looked like if—please don't be offended—if you'd been born as Bruce's twin?" she asked as she reached out and touched his left hand.

"Maybe," Adam said, "I hope not, but there's no way to know for certain. Well, without the Gamma, I at least wouldn't be green. I suppose I might have been big, but not like this. I've never really thought about it. Odds are I would have been pretty normal looking. Give me a moment and I'll try something." Adam contracted into Bruce's younger green-eyed doppelganger. "This form seems right to me because Bruce is kind of the default." He looked down at his body again, which was still in the skintight suit. He was suddenly self-conscious as he adjusted to using an adult brain and body. "Sometimes I'm really not sure what age I should be though."

Natasha was still holding his hand, "Adam, it's okay. I like talking to you no matter what form you take." She made a mental note that this had to be what Bruce looked like before the accident with the exception of Adam's striking eye color.

Adam smiled at her. He really liked that she had stayed steady and didn't let go of his hand through the transformation. Admittedly, he'd been worried she'd freak out. He was also relieved she'd asked him to stay and not kicked him out of her dream space. Part of him really wanted to impress her and help her understand he wasn't Bruce, so he reached deep down and focused on his genetic differences from his twin. What would he have looked like? He tried to find the cell clusters and the genes that so long ago started as his and extrapolate how he might have looked: hair a shade darker, shoulders narrower, an inch taller, a bit more pronounced freckles. "This is the best I can do to show you what I might have looked like," he said as he shifted. He also imagined himself wearing jeans and a dark sports coat with a bright red polo shirt under it, something that didn't look like it came out of Bruce's wardrobe. It took some effort, but, if doing it helped her see him as someone separate from Bruce, it was worth the trouble. He could have tried to look like someone else entirely, but to be honest, he was curious what he might have looked like, too.

Natasha studied him intensely. "I think you're a fraternal twin, but that's just a guess because you're still so similar." She squeezed his hand and let it go. "I guess we'll find out when we get the genetic testing done. It might be important or it might not." She walked over and sat down on one of the couches and patted the seat beside her. "Come, sit down, Adam, and let's just keep talking while we can." He didn't see anything wrong with that, so he sat down two cushions to her left and tried to look relaxed. However, for some unknown reason, he was not feeling right in this body. Natasha smiled at him, "I won't bite, Adam."

"Good, I won't either," he said. They both laughed. "You know, I used to have a big crush on you last summer."

"Awww, 'used to'?" she said sounding teasingly disappointed. "Here I thought you still liked me."

"Of course I still like you. I way more than just like you, but sometimes I end up channeling Bruce too much. His feelings for you are so strong, it's hard not to feel the same way." He gave her a sad smile, "But there has to be some distance if we're all three working together, right?"

"Sounds like you two have talked this through," she observed. Natasha was fairly sure Bruce would have set up restrictions and rules of some sort. It wasn't that Bruce didn't want the two of them interacting, but her fiancé wanted her to be safe. Maybe now that there was real communication, there would be some adjustments if this wasn't working for Adam.

"Yah, we have talked about it a lot, and we both agreed to respect each other's boundaries. It's just kind of hard to figure out what they are sometimes when things fluctuate."

Natasha could see Adam was looking uncomfortable and struggling with something, "Are you okay?"

"Would you mind if I changed forms again? This one is just not fitting right." Adam didn't want to admit it to himself, but it wasn't the fit of the form, it was the issue that along with the adult body came the adult feelings and responses, which he couldn't allow himself to have. After the previous episode during Natasha's nightmare, he'd been overwhelmed by feelings he just wasn't ready to acknowledge, so he'd retreated into less mature forms.

"No, go ahead. I don't want you to be uncomfortable, Adam. Anything you want to be is okay with me," Natasha encouraged him.

"Please don't be disappointed," he said and he shifted to about 12 years old. "I'm sorry. I can't always stay in an adult form. There's just too much hormonal baggage that comes with it. I can hold Bruce's adult form without too much of a problem, but not when I'm with you. I'm really sorry."

"Adam, I am so very far from being disappointed. We've hardly met face to face, and you've shifted five times. I don't know how you do any of this, but I would like you no matter how you looked. I understand. Without the anger there to drive the other feels out, it has to be overwhelming to mirror someone else's feelings."

"Thanks, I'm glad you're not disappointed," he said with some relief. "Thank you for understanding. I think I'm tired, too, so the superego part just gets overwhelmed by all the id impulses. I've not tried this in someone else's head before either."

"It's all right. Lay down if that would make you feel better."

"No, I want to keep talking to you while I can, 'Tasha."

"Tell me about what happened today. You said the boundaries came down that had separated you and Bruce."

"Bruce got a text from Stephen Strange that said it was time to remember, and then Bruce remembered me. We don't know why it came when it did. Both of us are getting bits and pieces of memories back. I'm remembering details from being Hulk. Bruce said he's been able to fill in some gaps, too. It's been pretty overwhelming." He sighed and stretched his arms over his head. "To be fair, I'm probably driving him nuts because I can get really excited. We can finally communicate and he doesn't forget. I can even get sensory impressions through him. We kind of overdid it on ice cream. Anyway, we did an awful lot after that, so we've not been able to sit down and process things together. Not yet, but we'll probably do that tomorrow."

"I saw today's itinerary and I know you two did even more than it shows," said Natasha. "I'm guessing you went to a jeweler's pretty early since the paperwork Pepper left had Cincinnati printed on it."

"That was the first thing we did after the doctor's visit. Hey, I helped pick out your ring," he said, brightening up. "Did you like it?"

"I love it. It's beautiful."

"Did it fit? Bruce was sure it would fit."

"Yes, it's perfect."

"It has moons and lilies in the filigree. If you use a magnifying glass, you'll see them."

"I'll do that when I'm awake."

"Wait, let me see your hand." He held his out to her and she gave him her left hand. "Think about it being on your finger," Adam said as he concentrated and the ring appeared and its details sharpened. He imagined how Friday would scan and display it, and the 3D line drawing appeared in the air. "There," he said and pointed out the lilies and moons carved on the shank as he rotated the 12-inch hologram with his left index finger. "If you're able to remember this when you wake up, they'll be easier for you to spot now."

Natasha sat there trying not to gape at what he was doing. She knew this was the same person who charged through concrete bunkers like they were paper and cardboard and who had skillfully subdued her and patiently held her so she didn't hurt herself or Bruce. Yet, he wasn't at all what she'd expected. Her head wanted to spin, so she held onto his hand, which, dream or not, felt comforting and warm. "You feel so solid here," she said.

"That's because I am real here. You are too, just in a different way than I am." He looked at her and frowned. "Are you okay, 'Tasha? Did I do something wrong? I just wanted to show you the details."

"No, you've not done anything wrong, Adam. I'm really surprised and impressed with how you're showing this to me. Of course, there's a lot more to you beyond what I know of you as Hulk, but _bozhe moi_ how do you do this?" she asked as she gestured to the holograph-like display.

"It's just what I do. I use my imagination to make and shape things. Bruce calls me 'a spirit of pure intellect,' but that makes it sound like all I do is check his formulae and theorems all day. I do a lot of other things, so I won't get bored and get into trouble. I try to stay away from destructive or violent activities—unless I'm Hulk of course. I like to make places and objects in Bruce's imagination. I wasn't sure if I could affect things in yours, too, but apparently I'm able to manage it." At that he held up both hands with splayed fingers and turned the ring into a Luna moth. He was being a bit of a showoff, but he couldn't resist it just once. They watched it flutter around the room before it settled on the stonework of the fireplace. "I can shape things on the Astral Plane, too, but I'm supposed to avoid going there. The less said about that, the better."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, "Does Bruce know you can do all of these things?"

"Oh, yes, he's known about the basics since early on when I made him places to go inside that were out of the books we read together. That's back when he called me Guardian. I made some beautiful places out of Robert Louis Stevenson, Ursula Le Guin, and Tolkien stories. These were spots in his imagination he could go when he needed to get away from people. It was how I protected him when he was young. Later, he needed me more for the homework and then the intellectual pursuits. I helped keep him somewhat organized, but that's not really my strong suit. I was his Echo whenever he needed me."

"You really are Jiminy Cricket and the Genie or . . ."

"Please don't call me Tinkerbelle. I can stand being a Lost Boy or Peter Pan, but I'm more like Caliban and Ariel from the _Tempest_ than Disney characters," he said with a rye smile.

Natasha nodded. "I can see that," she said and chewed her lower lip. "So you were a friend in his head and his comforter and advisor when he needed you. It sounds like you two were exceptionally close. What happened to separate you?"

Adam pulled his bare feet up onto the couch and drew his knees up close to his chin. "After the accident, I was bound to the Gamma, so we became Hulk. The pain and the anger completely took over. Bruce didn't recognize me inside or outside of his head. He thought I was the cause of all the pain and destruction, so he sequestered me in his subconscious. Later, Bruce was able to hold me at the ready like I was on a short leash. We both were in a lot of pain. That finally ended last May after we left you, but we still had difficulty communicating. Until this morning, he's not been able to remember much of me when he's conscious, but now he does, so things between us are finally getting back to normal again."

Natasha had grown more and more horrified as she listened. What he was telling her aligned with Bruce's description of suppressing "the monster" as deep inside as possible ( _You can't kill me. I tried._ ) and "the angry edge" ( _I'm always angry_.). As bad as it was for Bruce to be maligned and hunted as a fugitive, Adam had lived like a prisoner of war inside what had been his home, and out of ignorance, Bruce had been cast in the role of jailor. She found herself pulling her feet up onto the couch and wanting to mirror him and be as small of a target as possible, but she made herself keep her posture open, willing herself to relax so he might be more comfortable. "Adam, I'm so sorry. Does Bruce understand now?"

"'Tasha, don't go there. We've all been through really horrible experiences. I'm not sharing this so you'll feel sorry for me or Bruce. I just want you to know who I am when I'm not suited up green and in too much physical pain to put words together."

"I'm going to remember you," she said fiercely. "I know you better now, and I will not let that go away."

"'Tasha, even if you don't remember this conversation, I appreciate the fact that you're having it with me. You've given us, both Bruce and me, something to work toward. I knew I could count on your judgment because you tried to get Bruce off the Helicarrier. Later, you were brave enough to work with me when no one else wanted to be near either Bruce or me (except for maybe Tony), but you understood I'm not normal, I'm not safe if we're forced to change and the pain builds till I'm not sane. You knew you couldn't turn your back on me either, but you figured it out and found a way to make it work. That's something Betty never understood. She thought she was just working with Bruce, so there was no real monster and all she had to do was talk him down. That's why we had to leave when we did because sooner or later I would have killed her. I couldn't let that happen."

The next thing Natasha wanted to ask was going to be hard to hear, but she needed to know. "In the safe house, you said you left me out of love," she said, and she held her breath.

"We did. Bruce saw what happened when you were near us—you became a target. The target on our back was just getting bigger, so we made what we both thought was the right call to protect you and other people." Adam brought his knees down and leaned a little closer to her before he reached over and touched her forearm. "In hindsight, I was wrong. I sincerely thought I was doing the right thing when I stayed in control and made us leave. I'm sorry. I didn't do it to hurt you."

She patted his hand, "Thank you for telling me why. I know you didn't want to hurt me."

"It's one of the few times I've made Bruce do something," he admitted, "and I never want to do that again. It's caused him some memory issues, but he should be able to make sense of it now." He shook his head, "I may have to apologize again though."

"How often do you get to talk to Bruce?" she asked out of genuine curiosity.

"Any time he's not busy interacting with other people now, but before, it was less often. If he wasn't too tired, he usually tried to visit me every other night or so. I've been rebuilding things since May, so we're nearly back to where we were before the accident, except for the really old places. I hope there's a way I can show it to you someday, 'Tasha."

"Do you make the places up?"

"Most of them now are from memories, but I have rooms like this that I've spent enough time in to recreate most of the details. The outdoor ones are the places I like the most though. Tony's upstate property is one of my newer favorites. Bruce knows to look for me there if I'm not in the Dayton house or your apartment here at the tower."

"No kidding, you've done the apartment?"

"Yah, in pretty good detail since you've let me visit, and Bruce has remembered to look at things for me, too. I'd take you there now, but I think we both need to be rested up before I try that. Which reminds me, how are you feeling?"

"Well, I'm not puking here, so that's an improvement. Nick is making me eat crackers with 7-Up, but otherwise, all is well. Did you get to see the sonogram?"

"Wouldn't have missed it," he grinned. At some point he'd tell her more because he was sure she would understand, but not tonight.

"You're getting tired, aren't you," she said as she watched him start to sag a bit.

"Yah, I better get back before Bruce misses me," Adam said as he got up. "I'll try and check in on you tomorrow or the next night if I can. Uh, if you're okay with that, I mean.'"

"I'm okay with it, but I can't guarantee what you'll find," she said with her usual smirk.

"I guess I'll check here for you first then," he said and smiled back innocently.

She got up and gave him a side hug then kissed his forehead, "This has been so nice to finally see you and talk. I've wanted to know you for so long, Big Guy. Tell Bruce I love and miss him, too. I can't wait till you're both home."

He surprised her by hugging her with both arms, but she willingly embraced him, stroking his hair as he relaxed into her. Again she smelled the apples and sage, but this time there was no bitter Gamma beneath it. Deep down, she knew he was using this younger form to hide from his emotions. The whole line about channeling Bruce's feelings was a story he'd probably told himself so many times that he'd started to believe it. She wasn't about to push him because he clearly needed to believe it, but she understood how tenuous the situation might get if they let it go too long and didn't talk about it. There would be time for that. Right now she just wanted to remember who he was when she woke up in the morning. As she took another deep breath before letting go of him, Natasha realized his heartbeat had synced up with hers again. Before she could ask how or why, he stepped back and waved good-bye as he faded. "It's so I can find you," she heard him explain.

Natasha didn't want to think about how easily he'd read her to answer that question. She picked up a pen off the coffee table and wrote "Adam" on her palm. "I will remember him. I will remember him. I will remember him," she told herself aloud as she thought of his dark green eyes, overgrown curls, shy smile, and enthusiasm. There was no magic to this, just repetition, which she hoped would get his memory to stick. Natasha considered sitting there and waiting till she woke up in the morning, but that seemed completely ridiculous, so she walked up the stairs to the right level and went back to their apartment. As she lay back down in Bruce's spot, Natasha felt like he was there with her, and she drifted into the dream she'd wanted in the first place—the one where Bruce kissed the back of her neck and gently reached around to massage her mons until she was wet and he rubbed his hips against her ass and lower back, getting himself harder until he entered her from behind. "Bruce," she gasped and he growled in her ear, "You're mine, my Love. All mine!" as he gently thrust into her and stroked and touched her until he brought her off. She woke up briefly a few hours later and looked at the clock. _Just 54 hours until Bruce and Adam (yes, Adam!) were home_ , and she fell back to sleep.

 **End Notes:** I had to write this chapter while on the road, so I couldn't get my Cincinnati research completed as planned. I'd talked to a couple of people before about Nat and Adam needing to talk some things out, but getting them together in the present wasn't doable until the blocks came down, so the timing felt good for it to happen now.

Adam isn't Bruce and Adam and Nat are both "slippery fish" who gravitate toward each other. He's very afraid about his feelings her and has fallen back on one of Bruce's strategies of repressing "the monster". We all know how well that works.

Natasha would just like to get to know him for his own sake because, hey, there is much more to him than anyone could have guessed and she still sees herself as Hulk's advocate.

Next week I'm still on the road, but I hope to have us back in Cincinnati with the guys.

Comments and conversations are always welcome!


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary:** Rich introduces Bruce to the Food Pantry. They check out Smale Riverside Park. Bruce thinks a lot about his family and fatherhood.

 **Notes:** Sorry this is so late. I had to find a PC to get it to load, but it's BIG chapter. My final revision of the academic chapter is in now (much rejoicing), so maybe I'll get us back on schedule. (We'll see.) Many thanks to Autumn-Froste for the Beta help. Notes on the places we go are at the end.

Chapter 45: Fathers, Uncles, and Friends

"Here," Rich said handing him a Reds baseball cap. "Try it on and see if I remembered the size right."

"Ah, reciprocity." Bruce had long since put his knit cap in his coat pocket when he stepped in the building, so he tried the cap on and it fit perfectly. "Like a glove. Thanks, Rich!"

"Keep it on if you want to throw some people off," his cousin said with a wink.

"My mom taught me better than to wear a hat inside, but if you insist, I'll wear it.

"Up to you. I'll lock everything in here while we go down to the Fellowship Hall and check things out," Rich said.

"I'm ready. Lead onward Deacon Walcott," Bruce said with a grand gesture toward the door. He was still finding it a little odd to think of his cousin as an Episcopal Deacon.

Rich led the way down another set of stairs that dead-ended at a heavy metal door with another handwritten sign in calligraphy that read "Abandon Your Sadness, All Who Enter Here!" The Fellowship Hall was a large enough space that it could have housed a basketball court, and years ago it apparently had. They entered at the short end of the hall, and at the opposite was a stage with curtains. Spread across the polished wooden floor were round tables with eight chairs each, while a counter ran about half the length of the wall on the left and opened into a sizable kitchen with a great deal of open shelving stocked with nonperishable food staples. There were about a dozen people setting up what Bruce guessed were social service-related stations at the end of the hall near the stage.

Rich counted heads as they walked toward the far end of the room. "Hey, let me introduce you to some of the volunteers, Bruce," he said. One table had a retired nurse named Deborah who was there to help by taking people's blood pressure and answering general health questions. She laughed and admitted she also did "triage," and sent people on to a free clinic a few blocks away or to the Drop-in Center to file paperwork to get help. They hoped to start a needle exchange for heroin addicts, but it was meeting resistance from some local residents and the congregation wasn't of one mind to support it either. Rich then introduced him to Charmaine and Werner who were doing the paperwork duties for the food pantry so that they would be able to report how many individuals and families were helped to the regional food bank. There was also a table with crafts to keep very young children busy while their parents filled out paperwork or picked out suppliers from the pantry. Richard then took Bruce behind the serving counter into the kitchen and pantry where a half dozen more volunteers were working. Several were restocking shelves while others were arranging produce on the counter. A large woman with short-cropped gray hair came up and gave Richard a hug.

"Deacon Rich, you're the man I wanted to see," she said.

He put his hands in the air, "Uh-oh, that means there's a job that needs doing! Did the frozen food get here late?"

"You know it. Could you two help me haul it in from the dock?"

"Sure, Libby," he replied with a grin. "By the way, this is my cousin Bruce who's visiting today."

Libby smiled warmly and gave Bruce a hug before he could even offer a hand. "Oh, darlin', it's good to meet you! Sorry, for not introducing myself first. The ball cap threw me for a moment. How long are you in town?"

"Just a couple of days. We're here for the science conference up at the university," Bruce replied.

"Well, it's great to have you here, Bruce," she said with a cordial nod.

Bruce followed his cousin up another set of steps to a loading dock where they arrived in time to find a modest panel van backing into the bay. Libby talked to the driver and signed for the load. "This time of year," Rich said, "I bet it's going to be turkey of some type. The stores want to move what didn't sell for the holidays, so we usually get the boon. I hope it's breasts or smaller parts because our clients sometimes don't have a way to cook a whole bird."

Bruce nodded, "Hard to cook one without an oven. Have you thought about thawing and dividing them up?"

"Can't do that, or believe me, we'd be quartering them or roasting them for people. The packaging has to stay intact," Richard noted.

"Lucky us," said Libby as she walked to the back of the van. "There are some turkey breasts, but most of the load is turkey rolls!" She and Rich both seemed pretty relieved, but Bruce frowned because he was thinking of the extra processing and the lost nutrition. He couldn't think of an immediate solution, so he pushed the problem to the back of his mind for later consideration. He and Rich soon had the cases of frozen meat stacked on a dolly, and they met Libby at the freight elevator.

"So where does this come from? Who donates it?" Bruce asked.

"This load came from a local grocery chain, but we get food donations from bakeries and restaurants as well," Libby said. "Sometimes it's overstocks that they need to move or it can be leftovers or things like day-old items that are not going to sell fast enough. Nothing is expired though."

"Do they donate the seconds or rejects like bruised produce?" he asked.

"No, unfortunately, a lot of that goes to waste. Produce especially get's thrown away if it's blemished or packaged with pieces that don't ripen at the same time," said Rich.

"We're a very wasteful culture, especially considering how many people are food insecure," added Libby as they took the elevator down to the same level as the hall. "The other trouble we have is people either don't have the means or the knowledge to cook some of the food we get. They may only have a hot plate or a small microwave oven or a toaster oven, so they're very limited in what they can take and prepare for their families."

Richard sighed, "One time we got a case of turnips, and no one under 40 had a clue how to cook them. Libby had to print out instructions and talk people into taking them and giving them a try."

"I've had to do that with kale, collards, chard, rutabagas, kohlrabi, eggplant, and jicama," she chuckled. "Some of our clients tremble in fear when they see me with a handout and a strange veggie in my hands." They all laughed as they pushed the dolly into the kitchen where Richard and Bruce soon had a freezer stacked full of turkey rolls.

"I'll take the dolly back up," said Libby. "Thanks for helping. Maybe next time we'll find something for your alter ego to help with."

Bruce grinned, "Let me know. He really enjoys helping."

"Be careful, she'll take you up on it, Bru," Richard warned. "Thanks for doing lead for me, Libby. I'll be in this afternoon to go over stats." They said their good-byes and headed back up to Rich's office. "Well, are you up for a walk or would you rather grab some public bikes?" he asked.

"Walking is fine. I should tell you that we'll have company, but they'll keep their distance unless something happens. There may be some protesters we'll need to avoid, but I think if I can get by without being spotted, we won't have an issue." Bruce felt his phone vibrate so he checked it, and there was a call from Clint. "Cross your fingers this isn't serious," he said to Rich as he answered. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Found our protesters. They've set up on Fountain Square for the present even though they don't have a permit," Clint reported.

"Okay, that means we can stay out of their way if we stick to the south," Bruce reasoned.

"As long as you don't walk that direction back to the hotel," Clint warned. "Are you ready to move?"

"Yah, we're ready to go for our walk. Oh, I have a box of family pictures and things that needs to go back to the hotel, and it's too big to take with us."

"I'll have someone meet you at the door. Which one are you exiting from?"

Bruce looked at Rich, "Which door are we leaving the building by?"

"Let's go through the bookstore exit on the south side," his cousin replied.

"Hear that?" Bruce asked.

"Got you. Stacy will meet you at the bookstore and take care of the box," Clint said. "Stay on the main streets if you can. I'll warn you if there are issues."

"Thanks, Clint. We're putting on our coats and heading up." Bruce nodded to Rich, "They're in place, so time to go." As they both put their coats on collected the box, Bruce asked, "So what are your greatest needs? What do you run low on at the pantry?"

"That's an easy one: baby formula, diapers, and feminine hygiene products. Those are off the shelf as soon as they get here. No contest," the deacon answered.

Bruce nodded and made a mental note to follow up on this as they finally reached the main floor and Rich cut through the main sanctuary. The space wasn't fully illuminated, but it was as cavernous as Bruce remembered it with a clean, modern style. He preferred the intimacy of the chapel, but this was an impressive space, especially with a crowd of people, the full choir, and the organ playing with the stops out. Unfortunately, it had overloaded his senses so much as a small child that he'd huddled against his mother's side with his hands over his ears on the few occasions he'd experienced it at those most fully majestic levels. Now, he knew how to cope better as an adult, so the instinct to panic was only a fleeting memory. He could tell Adam remembered it too, but he didn't feel the angst they once had either. _What a barn!_ Adam noted as their steps echoed across the slate floor. They emerged on the other side to turn left and headed for the bookstore.

Bruce couldn't place who Stacy was until he saw her waiting in the Cathedral Gift and Bookstore browsing through the cards. "Hey, Stacy, thanks for doing this," he said to her.

She was a pale blonde in her late thirties, one of Mal's regular employees and not a former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent. She was dressed casually in athletic gear and had a bike helmet in the crook of her arm that wasn't for show. "Not a problem, Doctor." Rich had insisted on re-taping the box back up, and Stacy gave Bruce an amused look when she saw the Girl Scout label. "Oh, dear, I hope I can get this delivered without someone hitting me up for a box of cookies," she teased.

"The one thing I didn't see inside were cookies, but there are framed photos so please don't drop it," Bruce cautioned.

"That's why I have the bungee cords," she countered. "Don't worry. I'll have it in your room safe and sound in less than twenty minutes. I'll even give you a head start."

Bruce finally gave her the box with a bemused smile, "As long as it's safe, I'll be happy. My past is in your hands."

"See you in the park," she said as the two men stepped out the door and into the brisk morning air. The sky had lightened up to a pale blue with some cloud cover as the sun came up. The sidewalks and streets were now populated with people going to work.

They walked two blocks west on East 4th Street before turning left to head south and downhill on Main Street to get to the river. Bruce was wearing the Reds ball cap Rich had given him and kept his head down for the first few blocks. "I think we're past the hot spot now," Rich said glancing up the street to their right as they turned the corner the opposite way. Bruce relaxed and slowed down. "I'll take us down by the ball park, so you can see some of what they've installed out front with the statues and where the old stadium was. It's pretty neat. Do you even remember the old Crosley Field between here and Price Hill?"

"Just barely. I was only in kindergarten the one time I can recall we went, but I do remember Riverfront Stadium, the one they replaced between that and the current one. Rich, if I didn't say it before, thank you so much for saving the box and getting it to me."

"You did. It's still not a problem, Bru. I'm just really sorry it got misplaced for so long," he said as he patted his younger cousin's shoulder.

"Hey, I'm just so pleased there's something that was left intact. I really thought he'd destroyed it all or things were thrown away," Bruce noted. "Also, I wanted to thank you and Katie for taking care of the graves at the cemetery. It really means a lot to me since the Agreements have not let me visit this year. I hate thinking of Mom's plot not being looked after."

"Your mom isn't the only one we have there, so it's really not a problem. Katie and I went by and placed flowers last Memorial Day and cleaned up twice over the summer. We checked on things at Thanksgiving when we were up seeing Mom. By the way, what is up with these restrictions? I can get they want to keep tabs on you, but not letting you visit your mother's grave is just capricious and . . . well, mean."

"As with all things done by a committee of squabbling parties, there are plenty of inconsistencies," Bruce said, "but the one thing we could count on through this whole process was just how personal some people wanted to make everything they could." Bruce noticed he'd picked up the pace too much again and slowed down once more. There was no need to start hate walking. "I'm not at all criticizing the work Jenn and the team did. They kept me out of Ross's hands and everyone's hands off my actual cells, but being confined to the tower has been tough at times, especially for the Big Guy. In fact, this morning is quite a treat if you ignore my friends following us."

"How many?" asked Rich who was now trying hard not to look for ninjas everywhere.

"I'm guessing five when Stacy gets back from the hotel," Bruce said. "By the way, you're not going to notice them, so don't worry about looking for anyone following us."

"They're that good?" the taller man asked.

"Yah. It's more of a challenge since there aren't too many people on the streets yet, but they are professionals."

The two men waited for the lights to change as they crossed East 3rd Street and finally met a crowd of people headed to work. Bruce checked his watch; it was almost 8:30am. He looked at the modern Great American Ball Park looming just ahead. "Rounding third and headed for home!" he read and knew it was a Joe Nuxhall quotation on the upper level. Bruce smiled as he thought of the old former player and broadcast announcer who was to the Reds what Yogi Berra was to the Yankees. They continued on to cross East 2nd Street, and Rich led them into a courtyard and garden area called Crosley Terrace in remembrance of the old ball field. Richard pointed to a group of bronze statues arranged as if they were playing ball around home plate, and the two walked across the open area to get a closer look. "Well, what do you think?" Rich asked as they looked at the arrangement.

It took Bruce a minute, but then he started to laugh when he figured out who the figures were. "Nuxy, Ernie Lombardi, Ted Kluszewski, Frank Robinson: it's a dream game all right. They weren't all on the team at the same time, but they all played at the old Crosley Field, right?"

"Good, you haven't forgotten everything," Rich joked. He pointed to the right, "The ones for Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan are further around the side." They headed that direction and took their time reading the signage and markers then headed back south on Main Street. "Do you want to go to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center or Smale Park?" Rich asked.

Bruce blew out his breath and puffed his cheeks, "As tempting as the Freedom Center is, the weather is too nice to pass up, and I will have a rebellion on my hands if we don't do the park. We'll also drive our observers crazy since it's not what they were planning."

"So the Big Guy wants to stay outside, too, huh?" the taller man grinned.

"Oh, you don't know the half of it!" Bruce extended his arms and threw his head back and sighed. "He just geared up for an argument about Vitamin D deficiency if I'd gone with the Freedom Center."

"He can tell you all about that?" Rich said with surprise.

"Just a moment," said Bruce as he fished in his coat pocket for Tony's shielding device. "I'm not sure if this will work while we walk, but let's give it a try. You never know who's eavesdropping." Bruce switched it on, and they continued down Main Street. "Along with the other significant events that happened yesterday—don't ask me how, but I'm finally communicating with the Big Guy again."

Rich's eyebrows flew up, "No kidding? In your head?"

"Yah, right now," Bruce said. Rich slowed down his walk and was quiet for a while. He stroked his beard and was clearly considering whether or not to bring something up. "Okay, spit it out, Rich," Bruce said as they arrived at the final crosswalk before the park.

"Please don't take this wrong, but I remember how my mom lectured me when I was maybe ten and you weren't old enough to be in kindergarten yet, to take it easy on you because you were such a lonely kid that you had an imaginary friend. Your mom was really worried about you because you seemed perfectly satisfied to be in your head all the time with . . . what was the doll's name? Champion?"

"Guardian," corrected Bruce.

"Yes, sorry, Guardian. You seemed to like being with Guardian more than living in the real world with other people."

"True, I probably did at that age," Bruce admitted.

"But Guardian wasn't, no _isn't_ imaginary is he?" Rich surmised.

"Right," Bruce nodded his head. "We lost the ability to communicate consistently after the accident until just recently, but you're right, he's been there whether I acknowledged him or not."

"So Guardian is the Big Guy," Richard said, shaking his head as the pieces fell into place. "That actually makes a lot of sense. You were such a logical kid except when it came to Guardian. I remember sitting on the beach and watching you build castles and dig moats until you ran into an engineering problem and switched hands and methods completely to find a solution. You'd never want my help. I'd ask you how you solved your building problems, and you'd say it was Guardian's turn since he knew how to fix it. You could be such a little maniac!"

"Yah," Bruce said, "that's how it works." He was watching his cousin shake his head and thinking it was an attempt to understand and process what seemed impossible. "Have I weirded you out, Rich?"

"Look, I'm a person of faith with a background in science. I'm used to a little ambiguity, and I know a few things that are absolutely true, yet they defy logic. Give me time, and I will get my head around this," the bearded deacon said.

"Do you have any questions? I'll do my best to answer them," Brue offered. They had arrived at an area that in warmer weather had fountains with jets of water coming out of the pavement for children or adventurous adults to enjoy. A bit further on, there were several benches lined up along a granite-paved path that ran parallel to the Ohio shore, so they sat down on one of these.

"Okay," Rich finally said. "Different topic. We've not talked about this, but I feel like we really ought to discuss some things that maybe went over both of our heads at the time."

Bruce nodded because he was really curious to hear where Rich was going with this. "Okay, go ahead. I'm all ears."

"I don't know if anyone ever told you this—and I'm not criticizing your Aunt Susan—but Mom and Dad really wanted to adopt you, Bruce. They went as far as hiring a lawyer to try and get custody, but Susan was willing to go through hell and back to keep you."

Bruce sat there stunned. He'd had no idea there had been any disagreement back then. From his perspective, he'd thought his Aunt Susan had been the only one who wanted him. If fact, he'd sometimes felt like he'd been a burden to her. "Really?" Bruce asked. "When?"

"As soon as your mother died. There was no will and the issues with your father complicated things. It came down to Susan having been named your God Mother of all things—that, and you not having to share a bedroom if you lived with her. As you got settled in with your aunt and the legal proceedings dragged on, my parents and your aunts on the Banner side tried to work things out."

"For two years, right?" Bruce questioned. "Till I was ten."

"Right, for two years we all continued to go on vacation and shared holidays together, but it finally became clear it would be better for you to have a stable home than for anyone to uproot you yet again. My mom cried about it a lot because they wanted to do the right thing. It wasn't that they thought your Aunt Susan wouldn't do a good job raising you, they thought having siblings and two parents would help bring you out of your shell," Rich said.

Bruce shook his head, "This does explain some things that I wondered about back then. I couldn't figure out why being with everyone just ended. I wanted to see all of you, but there were always excuses about schedules or illnesses. I finally wrote it off as you all didn't want to see me."

"Oh, no, that was never the case, Bruce," Richard quickly replied. "It may have been the stress that seeing each other put on the adults. I don't know for certain because Mom won't talk about it, but we never stopped caring about you. They tried to convince your aunts to let you stay the summers with us, but that was the year you started attending the Science Academy, and Susan wanted you to focus on it."

Bruce sighed and tossed back his head, making a grimace and staring into the pale blue sky. He had been almost 14 and was completely full of himself at that point. Would he have been different without his aunt pushing him and feeding his ego? How might he have shaped up if the Walcotts had raised him with a much bigger family in a large, noisy house and on a tighter budget? Part of him had longed for that big traditional family because he'd been so lonely any time he was outside his head. He'd had his cousin Jennifer who'd stuck by him through every up and down, but not on a daily basis like it would have been with Rich's parents. Maybe he would have been socialized better with the Walcotts, but as an only child he'd been the sole focus of both his mother's and then his aunt's attentions. Their love and expectations had pushed him to get as far as he possibly could. Would the same thing have happened at the Walcott's? He just didn't know and in the end it couldn't be changed, so it really didn't matter. Still, it made him happier to realize he had been wanted after all.

"I can't believe I didn't catch onto any of this growing up, but I was a pretty introverted kid," Bruce lamented. He leaned forward so his elbows were propped on his knees and gazed out over the river. The morning fog over the water had yet to burn off, and it hid most of the Roebling Bridge, its namesake's precursor to the Brooklyn Bridge. All he could see were the blue superstructures and the flags and ornamentation at both ends that rose above the stone pylons.

"Well, I was old enough that I should have caught on," said Rich, "but I've always been pretty dense." He was joking but the older man became serious again. "It's amazing what 30 years of hindsight will do. Now we're trained to recognize the signs of abuse and report them, but back then people didn't say anything; they hid the bruises and felt too ashamed to ask for help."

"Rich, he was very good at hiding or making excuses for what he did. Unless Dad was really drunk, he hit us where it didn't show or he settled for browbeating and shaming us. He was mentally ill, but the weapons program needed his work so much they overlooked his erratic behavior and ignored anything that happened in our house. Because we lived on base, the MPs were the only ones who ever came, and they never did more than talk to him and tell Mom to keep out of his way and humor him."

Richard reached over and put his hand on his cousin's shoulder, and Bruce looked up and gave him a small smile. "Come on, let's go check out the park," Rich said, so they both stood up and started to follow one of the paths to a group of statues and a memorial that was in a grove of leafless young trees, which were barely starting to bud this early in the year. "This is the first art piece for the park that was installed," said Richard. "Until I read about it here, I had no idea what the Black Brigade was during the Civil War."

The monument had three sculptures with two figures each and a low wall with friezes that told the story of how the Black Brigade was formed in 1862 to construct barricades to defend Cincinnati from Confederate attack from the South. "Initially, members of the Black Brigade were forced into service. Then, after a public outcry, 718 African-American men volunteered for the service and formed The Black Brigade—which, alongside many other local soldiers, successfully built the critical fortifications in Northern Kentucky." The first sculpture was of a table with two men reading a newspaper draped over its surface announcing the formation of the brigade. The cousins followed the path along the wall and read about the complicated history and accomplishments of the group.

"See you in the park," she said as the two men stepped out the door and into the brisk morning air. The sky had lightened up to a pale blue with some cloud cover as the sun came up. The sidewalks and streets were now populated with people going to work.

They walked two blocks west on East 4th Street before turning left to head south and downhill on Main Street to get to the river. Bruce was wearing the Reds ball cap Rich had given him and kept his head down for the first few blocks. "I think we're past the hot spot now," Rich said glancing up the street to their right as they turned the corner the opposite way. Bruce relaxed and slowed down. "I'll take us down by the ball park, so you can see some of what they've installed out front with the statues and where the old stadium was. It's pretty neat. Do you even remember the old Crosley Field between here and Price Hill?"

"Just barely. I was only in kindergarten the one time I can recall we went, but I do remember Riverfront Stadium, the one they replaced between that and the current one. Rich, if I didn't say it before, thank you so much for saving the box and getting it to me."

"You did. It's still not a problem, Bru. I'm just really sorry it got misplaced for so long," he said as he patted his younger cousin's shoulder.

"Hey, I'm just so pleased there's something that was left intact. I really thought he'd destroyed it all or things were thrown away," Bruce noted. "Also, I wanted to thank you and Katie for taking care of the graves at the cemetery. It really means a lot to me since the Agreements have not let me visit this year. I hate thinking of Mom's plot not being looked after."

"Your mom isn't the only one we have there, so it's really not a problem. Katie and I went by and placed flowers last Memorial Day and cleaned up twice over the summer. We checked on things at Thanksgiving when we were up seeing Mom. By the way, what is up with these restrictions? I can get they want to keep tabs on you, but not letting you visit your mother's grave is just capricious and . . . well, mean."

"As with all things done by a committee of squabbling parties, there are plenty of inconsistencies," Bruce said, "but the one thing we could count on through this whole process was just how personal some people wanted to make everything they could." Bruce noticed he'd picked up the pace too much again and slowed down once more. There was no need to start hate walking. "I'm not at all criticizing the work Jenn and the team did. They kept me out of Ross's hands and everyone's hands off my actual cells, but being confined to the tower has been tough at times, especially for the Big Guy. In fact, this morning is quite a treat if you ignore my friends following us."

"How many?" asked Rich who was now trying hard not to look for ninjas everywhere.

"I'm guessing five when Stacy gets back from the hotel," Bruce said. "By the way, you're not going to notice them, so don't worry about looking for anyone following us."

"They're that good?" the taller man asked.

"Yah. It's more of a challenge since there aren't too many people on the streets yet, but they are professionals."

The two men waited for the lights to change as they crossed East 3rd Street and finally met a crowd of people headed to work. Bruce checked his watch; it was almost 8:30am. He looked at the modern Great American Ball Park looming just ahead. "Rounding third and headed for home!" he read and knew it was a Joe Nuxhall quotation on the upper level. Bruce smiled as he thought of the old former player and broadcast announcer who was to the Reds what Yogi Berra was to the Yankees. They continued on to cross East 2nd Street, and Rich led them into a courtyard and garden area called Crosley Terrace in remembrance of the old ball field. Richard pointed to a group of bronze statues arranged as if they were playing ball around home plate, and the two walked across the open area to get a closer look. "Well, what do you think?" Rich asked as they looked at the arrangement.

It took Bruce a minute, but then he started to laugh when he figured out who the figures were. "Nuxy, Ernie Lombardi, Ted Kluszewski, Frank Robinson: it's a dream game all right. They weren't all on the team at the same time, but they all played at the old Crosley Field, right?"

"Good, you haven't forgotten everything," Rich joked. He pointed to the right, "The ones for Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan are further around the side." They headed that direction and took their time reading the signage and markers then headed back south on Main Street. "Do you want to go to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center or Smale Park?" Rich asked.

Bruce blew out his breath and puffed his cheeks, "As tempting as the Freedom Center is, the weather is too nice to pass up, and I will have a rebellion on my hands if we don't do the park. We'll also drive our observers crazy since it's not what they were planning."

"So the Big Guy wants to stay outside, too, huh?" the taller man grinned.

"Oh, you don't know the half of it!" Bruce extended his arms and threw his head back and sighed. "He just geared up for an argument about Vitamin D deficiency if I'd gone with the Freedom Center."

"He can tell you all about that?" Rich said with surprise.

"Just a moment," said Bruce as he fished in his coat pocket for Tony's shielding device. "I'm not sure if this will work while we walk, but let's give it a try. You never know who's eavesdropping." Bruce switched it on, and they continued down Main Street. "Along with the other significant events that happened yesterday—don't ask me how, but I'm finally communicating with the Big Guy again."

Rich's eyebrows flew up, "No kidding? In your head?"

"Yah, right now," Bruce said. Rich slowed down his walk and was quiet for a while. He stroked his beard and was clearly considering whether or not to bring something up. "Okay, spit it out, Rich," Bruce said as they arrived at the final crosswalk before the park.

"Please don't take this wrong, but I remember how my mom lectured me when I was maybe ten and you weren't old enough to be in kindergarten yet, to take it easy on you because you were such a lonely kid that you had an imaginary friend. Your mom was really worried about you because you seemed perfectly satisfied to be in your head all the time with . . . what was the doll's name? Champion?"

"Guardian," corrected Bruce.

"Yes, sorry, Guardian. You seemed to like being with Guardian more than living in the real world with other people."

"True, I probably did at that age," Bruce admitted.

"But Guardian wasn't, no _isn't_ imaginary is he?" Rich surmised.

"Right," Bruce nodded his head. "We lost the ability to communicate consistently after the accident until just recently, but you're right, he's been there whether I acknowledged him or not."

"So Guardian is the Big Guy," Richard said, shaking his head as the pieces fell into place. "That actually makes a lot of sense. You were such a logical kid except when it came to Guardian. I remember sitting on the beach and watching you build castles and dig moats until you ran into an engineering problem and switched hands and methods completely to find a solution. You'd never want my help. I'd ask you how you solved your building problems, and you'd say it was Guardian's turn since he knew how to fix it. You could be such a little maniac!"

"Yah," Bruce said, "that's how it works." He was watching his cousin shake his head and thinking it was an attempt to understand and process what seemed impossible. "Have I weirded you out, Rich?"

"Look, I'm a person of faith with a background in science. I'm used to a little ambiguity, and I know a few things that are absolutely true, yet they defy logic. Give me time, and I will get my head around this," the bearded deacon said.

"Do you have any questions? I'll do my best to answer them," Brue offered. They had arrived at an area that in warmer weather had fountains with jets of water coming out of the pavement for children or adventurous adults to enjoy. A bit further on, there were several benches lined up along a granite-paved path that ran parallel to the Ohio shore, so they sat down on one of these.

"Okay," Rich finally said. "Different topic. We've not talked about this, but I feel like we really ought to discuss some things that maybe went over both of our heads at the time."

Bruce nodded because he was really curious to hear where Rich was going with this. "Okay, go ahead. I'm all ears."

"I don't know if anyone ever told you this—and I'm not criticizing your Aunt Susan—but Mom and Dad really wanted to adopt you, Bruce. They went as far as hiring a lawyer to try and get custody, but Susan was willing to go through hell and back to keep you."

Bruce sat there stunned. He'd had no idea there had been any disagreement back then. From his perspective, he'd thought his Aunt Susan had been the only one who wanted him. If fact, he'd sometimes felt like he'd been a burden to her. "Really?" Bruce asked. "When?"

"As soon as your mother died. There was no will and the issues with your father complicated things. It came down to Susan having been named your God Mother of all things—that, and you not having to share a bedroom if you lived with her. As you got settled in with your aunt and the legal proceedings dragged on, my parents and your aunts on the Banner side tried to work things out."

"For two years, right?" Bruce questioned. "Till I was ten."

"Right, for two years we all continued to go on vacation and shared holidays together, but it finally became clear it would be better for you to have a stable home than for anyone to uproot you yet again. My mom cried about it a lot because they wanted to do the right thing. It wasn't that they thought your Aunt Susan wouldn't do a good job raising you, they thought having siblings and two parents would help bring you out of your shell," Rich said.

Bruce shook his head, "This does explain some things that I wondered about back then. I couldn't figure out why being with everyone just ended. I wanted to see all of you, but there were always excuses about schedules or illnesses. I finally wrote it off as you all didn't want to see me."

"Oh, no, that was never the case, Bruce," Richard quickly replied. "It may have been the stress that seeing each other put on the adults. I don't know for certain because Mom won't talk about it, but we never stopped caring about you. They tried to convince your aunts to let you stay the summers with us, but that was the year you started attending the Science Academy, and Susan wanted you to focus on it."

Bruce sighed and tossed back his head, making a grimace and staring into the pale blue sky. He had been almost 14 and was completely full of himself at that point. Would he have been different without his aunt pushing him and feeding his ego? How might he have shaped up if the Walcotts had raised him with a much bigger family in a large, noisy house and on a tighter budget? Part of him had longed for that big traditional family because he'd been so lonely any time he was outside his head. He'd had his cousin Jennifer who'd stuck by him through every up and down, but not on a daily basis like it would have been with Rich's parents. Maybe he would have been socialized better with the Walcotts, but as an only child he'd been the sole focus of both his mother's and then his aunt's attentions. Their love and expectations had pushed him to get as far as he possibly could. Would the same thing have happened at the Walcott's? He just didn't know and in the end it couldn't be changed, so it really didn't matter. Still, it made him happier to realize he had been wanted after all.

"I can't believe I didn't catch onto any of this growing up, but I was a pretty introverted kid," Bruce lamented. He leaned forward so his elbows were propped on his knees and gazed out over the river. The morning fog over the water had yet to burn off, and it hid most of the Roebling Bridge, its namesake's precursor to the Brooklyn Bridge. All he could see were the blue superstructures and the flags and ornamentation at both ends that rose above the stone pylons.

"Well, I was old enough that I should have caught on," said Rich, "but I've always been pretty dense." He was joking but the older man became serious again. "It's amazing what 30 years of hindsight will do. Now we're trained to recognize the signs of abuse and report them, but back then people didn't say anything; they hid the bruises and felt too ashamed to ask for help."

"Rich, he was very good at hiding or making excuses for what he did. Unless Dad was really drunk, he hit us where it didn't show or he settled for browbeating and shaming us. He was mentally ill, but the weapons program needed his work so much they overlooked his erratic behavior and ignored anything that happened in our house. Because we lived on base, the MPs were the only ones who ever came, and they never did more than talk to him and tell Mom to keep out of his way and humor him."

Richard reached over and put his hand on his cousin's shoulder, and Bruce looked up and gave him a small smile. "Come on, let's go check out the park," Rich said, so they both stood up and started to follow one of the paths to a group of statues and a memorial that was in a grove of leafless young trees, which were barely starting to bud this early in the year. "This is the first art piece for the park that was installed," said Richard. "Until I read about it here, I had no idea what the Black Brigade was during the Civil War."

The monument had three sculptures with two figures each and a low wall with friezes that told the story of how the Black Brigade was formed in 1862 to construct barricades to defend Cincinnati from Confederate attack from the South. "Initially, members of the Black Brigade were forced into service. Then, after a public outcry, 718 African-American men volunteered for the service and formed The Black Brigade—which, alongside many other local soldiers, successfully built the critical fortifications in Northern Kentucky." The first sculpture was of a table with two men reading a newspaper draped over its surface announcing the formation of the brigade. The cousins followed the path along the wall and read about the complicated history and accomplishments of the group.

At the midpoint of the wall was a statue of an African-American mother and child kneeling and pointing to the south shore of the river. Bruce kept reading and followed the wall to its conclusion near a final pair of figures with Judge William Dickerson bestowing a sword on a soldier to honor the Black Brigade for its success in defending the area. As Bruce turned around to get a better look at the entire monument, he saw three rounded boulders along the path opposite the wall that he hadn't noticed while he was reading. Adam had been thoughtfully quiet, taking in the new information Bruce was taking in until he studied the three large rocks with the words "Anger," "Fear," and "Pain" carved on their surfaces. Adam stirred with emotion, and Bruce thought he might want to say something, but he remained quiet. _What is it?_ Bruce asked him silently.

 _Later_ , was all Adam replied.

Bruce lingered, looking at the boulders with their simple, one-word messages. He couldn't help but dwell for a moment on how his life had been shaped by those three emotions just as the people being honored here had been their entire lives. While he looked the monument over again as a whole, he realized what he liked about it was the progression it showed past the initial wrongs of conscription to a common outcry for justice, which transitioned into voluntary service to protect the whole region. In the end the message was positive and the Black Brigade had not been forgotten. Bruce pulled out his phone and took a couple of pictures to share. He wanted to remember this. Finally, he turned to follow Rich who was ready to continue on to the next section.

"Pretty moving, hmm?" his cousin asked as they walked.

"I had no idea about that piece of history either," Bruce said.

"At some point you need to go through the Freedom Center. It goes way beyond Antebellum history into today. Smale Riverside Park also has more installations coming as they complete the park, but here's my personal favorite," Rich noted. As they came out of the grove of bare-limned trees, a labyrinth for meditation came into view.

Bruce gave a chuckle, "Gee, I'd never have guessed it."

"Do you want to walk it?" Rich asked.

"As long as you don't try to turn it into a competition," Bruce said with a raised eyebrow and a smirk Natasha could have claimed. "After you, your deacon-ness!"

Rich rolled his eyes before he stepped methodically along the footway that wound in, out, and around itself to form the path within a large circular area. When it was quiet like this, it was helpful for meditation, so Bruce did his best to take advantage of the place and its purpose. This morning he kept it simple and contemplated thankfulness, which gave him a good excuse to think about things that made him happy. He was thankful for his family and friends. He thought about Adam, who was indeed being unusually quiet, but gave him a satisfied groan of acknowledgment when Bruce mentally reached out. He was tempted to prod Adam awake so they could finally talk, but Bruce didn't have the heart since Adam seamed to be napping—something he seldom did when Bruce was outside. He must really be zonked Bruce reasoned.

That brought Bruce to thinking about the baby and being a father. He was still worried about their child, especially the genetics, but there was nothing he could do at the moment, so he pushed those worries to the back of his mind. That led him back to his conversation with Rich about his own father. Bruce contemplated his chances of falling into the same patterns and mental illness his parent had. He was well aware of how abuse could be a generation-to-generation problem, but he was determined not to let this happen. He had been working with Cecily since June, and he felt better now than he had since graduate school. He wasn't entirely at peace with his childhood or his past actions—he never would be—but he was functioning well day-to-day and understanding himself better.

If his own father was the cautionary tale, Bruce at least had his uncles who had all been good fathers as better examples. Morris, Jennifer's dad, had been a biologist and encouraged them both to be curious and have a sense of wonder about their environment. He was one of the few people early on who understood what Bruce was interested in doing and encouraged him. Uncle Morris had given Bruce a copy of Rachael Carson's _Silent Spring_ when he was 10 so they'd have something to discuss. Morris was retired now, but he and Bruce still exchanged the occasional article or email, which restarted their conversations.

Richard's father Eugene had worked for Proctor and Gamble as a plant manager in the inner burb of Saint Bernard, but he'd always made his family a priority, which was probably why he'd not risen higher in the company. He'd been a baseball coach for Rich as well as a softball coach for his daughter Julia. Bruce remembered he loved to fish when he had the chance, which was something he liked to do with Uncle Morris. Eugene had also served on their church's vestry as well. Rich had his straight sandy hair, booming voice, and infectious laugh. He'd died while Bruce was in Brazil, so Bruce didn't find out until months later. He certainly did miss him.

Bruce didn't know his mother's sister Anna's husband Michael Dean as well as he did his other uncles because the Deans and their daughters Michelle, Nancy, and Olivia lived further away in Columbus, but Bruce knew he was a patient man who negotiated the treacherous waters between his wife and their three daughters (especially with the younger two who were twins) with good humor. He had been a pharmaceuticals salesman and knew more jokes and funny stories than anyone Bruce had ever encountered. Uncle Mike was always fun on vacations when he brought out his guitar and sang old folksongs and occasionally standards out of the old _Methodist Hymnal_. It was also easier to get his Aunt Susan to come along on trips when he was there because they both liked to sing.

As he continued to walk the pathway, Bruce thought about the three men and their different situations. They were quite different people, and none of them were perfect, but they'd done their best to be good fathers and partners. Eugene especially had made career sacrifices to spend time with his family. Bruce watched his cousin navigating the labyrinth ahead of him and thought of his cousin Julia, too. Yes, he knew Eugene and Aunt Janet had made good choices when it came to family.

 _Anger, Pain,_ and _Fear_ : Those three emotions had ruled his father's existence. What a bitter irony when one considered Brian Banner had been such a brilliant physicist who'd rejected everything in the end but his career. Those three emotions had ruled at least ten years of Bruce's life as well. He couldn't ignore them, but communicating and being present and emotionally available were things he could do to counter their influences. Adam wasn't Bruce's child, but he knew he'd failed him as badly as his own father had failed his family. The consequences had been catastrophic in both cases, but Bruce knew he had a second chance, and he wasn't about to blow it. Sometimes he wasn't sure if he was dealing with a sibling or a son or himself, but Bruce was determined to make Adam's existence as fulfilled and happy as he could.

Richard had reached the halfway point and passed Bruce going the opposite direction. Bruce had saved thinking about Natasha for last. For the hundred thousandth time he wondered what she saw in him. He'd been in such a bad place and acted like a jerk when they first met. Part of that was to keep everyone he could at a distance for their own safety and to spare him the pain of dealing with severed connections when the inevitable disastrous exit came. Bruce's stomach turned sour when he thought about how close he and Adam had come to killing her. Just as Adam could access his memories, Bruce was now getting a fuller impression of what had happened during some of their Hulk-outs. As he sifted through what he now remembered of the incident on _Helicarrier 64_ , Bruce knew Adam had almost gotten control of himself when Thor took him through the reinforced metal bulkhead, but Bruce was glad the demi-god had intervened because he wasn't willing to have risked her safety any further.

Bruce had tried to keep her at a distance, but part of him had pulled the rest toward her like a moth to the proverbial candle flame. He told himself he was too old, too broken, and too dangerous to have anything to offer her, but on the day Thor and Loki had returned to Asgard with the Tesseract, she had returned his duffle that he'd brought on the Helicarrier to him with a smirk that he wasn't sure how to read. He'd followed her to the agency car in the slacks and dress shirt he'd borrowed from Tony. To his complete surprise, Natasha had checked his backside out as they'd walked over to the vehicle together. He'd told himself there was no way it had happened, but the smile of appreciation that lingered on her face when she caught him gaping blankly at her said otherwise. He should have given her an equally lascivious look back, but instead he'd blushed and reached for his glasses, which were probably in a hazmat bag somewhere waiting to be incinerated with the remains of his favorite purple shirt. With nothing better to do with them, he awkwardly returned his hands to his pockets.

"So you're sticking around, Doc?" she'd asked as she opened the door to the back seat.

"Uh, yah, for a little while."

"Don't let Stark take up all your time," she'd warned before she passed him the overstuffed piece of luggage.

"Okay, but I don't really know a lot of people here who are still on speaking terms with me."

"Then stay in touch," she'd said with a much warmer smile, and they'd gone their separate ways with different colleagues.

Bruce had returned to Stark Tower with Tony to talk more formally about a partnership, so he'd dropped the luggage off in the suite he was temporarily staying in three floors below the damaged areas. He had meant to just drop the bag in the foyer and return to the lab area to look over blueprints with Tony, but for some reason, he took the duffle to the bedroom and started to unpack. If he was going to be staying, he might as well settle in, even if it would never be home sweet home.

As he unzipped the bag, right on top was a new phone, standard S.H.I.E.L.D. issue, with a sticky note attached. It read: "Don't take this with you anywhere you don't want to be tracked, but I've pulled out the bugs for you. Don't be a stranger. –Natasha." He checked the contacts list and there was her cell number and an email address. His instincts were telling him to pitch the thing as far as Hulk could throw it, but he set it on the nightstand and started to lay out his rather threadbare collection of clothes. Just under the first shirt was a narrow plastic bag with his glasses in it—or at least what was left of them. Both lenses were broken, but the frames were still good. The sticky note on these read: "Your shirt and shoes were DOA, but I thought the frames were salvageable. PS Do you not own a pair of socks?"

Bruce couldn't help but snort at that. On impulse, he picked up the cell phone and texted her: "No, I don't own a pair of socks, but I will by this afternoon." Afterward, his heart hammered in a panic, and it took him a few minutes to calm back down. _Oh, what have I done?_ He thought _._

By then she'd texted back: "Good. Kind of like that u don't wear underwear tho."

He replied: "I'm getting some of those, too."

She sent back: "Darn. Get blue then. Can't stand the thought of you in tighty-whities.

Bruce: "Don't worry, I wear boxers."

Natasha: "TG!"

Bruce: "Only because they don't make Underoos in my size."

Natasha: "Lol. I was going to say, I like someone who dresses like an adult."

Bruce: "Sorry!"

Natasha: "I would come dress u, but I'm headed out of town."

Bruce: "Darn. U are leaving me to Tony's tender mercies."

Natasha: "U could do worse."

Bruce: "True. Be safe."

Natasha: "Will call when I get back. Be good."

Two months later, the phone finally rang. Of course it was the middle of the night and less than an hour after he'd collapsed into bed after a couple of days in the lab. He'd long since talked himself out of her having the slightest interest in him. She was just being nice and flirting because that's what she did. She and Clint clearly had something going on. She was just keeping tabs on him as part of her job. He'd also thought about throwing the phone away or smashing it about a half dozen times. All those scenarios ran through his head in the first week, but he'd still kept the phone charged up and in his pocket or on the nightstand. When it finally rang, Bruce sat bolt upright, but it took him a moment to figure out what it was since he'd never heard the phone ring much less listened to "Stormy Weather" played as a ringtone before. He finally grabbed the right phone and answered: "Hi, I'm here."

"Bruce?"

"Yes, I'm right here, Natasha. Where are you?" he asked, trying to focus.

"Funny story. I'm on the roof. Do you think you could let me in, so I don't set off Stark's alarms?"

"On my way," he said and shoved his feet into his shoes and threw on his pajama pants that he'd never worn even once since he bought them two months ago. He grabbed his robe from the same drawer, also never worn before, and ran for the stairs to the roof. Halfway up, he realized he didn't have on socks or underwear. "Shit!" He kept on climbing anyway. Then it occurred to him that he was going to look pretty stupid if it wasn't Natasha. "JARVIS," he addressed the Interface, "is Agent Romanoff on the roof?"

"Good morning, Dr. Banner. Yes, Agent Romanoff is indeed on the roof," the Interface confirmed.

"Is she by herself?" he asked.

"Yes, she is alone."

"Good," he said as he finally arrived at the top of the final level. It took a moment to catch his breath. "Door please, JARVIS."

"My pleasure, Dr. Banner," the Interface responded as Bruce heard the double locks click and pushed the door open.

"Natasha?"

"Are you okay with a little blood?" she said from the shadows.

"Yes. Why?"

"It's a scalp wound, so it's bled a bit. It may not need stitches, but it's on the back of my head . . . mostly."

"Step inside and let me have a look," Bruce said as he propped the door open wide with his body leaning against it.

Natasha didn't seem too much the worse for wear from the front, but down her back on the left side she was covered with plenty of dried and congealing blood from a long shallow wound starting above her left ear and running to the midpoint on the back of her head. It made her hair on that side almost black in the dim light. Bruce could tell she was likely going to need stitches, but first he needed to get the bleeding stopped. The makeshift dressing someone had applied was sodden and came off in his hands, so Bruce took off his robe and folded it into a pad. "How are you holding up?" he asked her.

"To tell the truth, I'm starting to get a little light headed," she said. If she was ready to admit that, he knew she was serious.

"We are ever so inconveniently a floor up from the elevator, so if you can hold this here," he said as he pressed the plush blue material over her wound, "and apply pressure, I will get you down to the elevator. From there we'll go to the new infirmary, and I'll have you stitched up in no time. Sound good?"

"Positively peachy, Doc," she said.

He wasn't Thor or Steve or even Clint, but Natasha wasn't that big, even if she was all muscle, so he picked her up and carried her down the flight of steps without any difficulties. JARVIS sprung the door for him and he flipped it fully open with his foot. "How are you doing?" he asked as they waited for the elevator.

"This is going to hurt a lot in the morning," she said.

"I'll get you something for that shortly. The cut didn't look deep except for the last bit at the very back of your head, but I won't know for sure till you're cleaned up." He was beginning to get a little concerned about her since he didn't know how much blood she'd lost already. Her color was good, but she was definitely a bit fatigued.

The elevator finally arrived and he stepped in and punched the right floor. Natasha leaned her head against his bare chest. "You are so warm, and you smell good, too."

"Wouldn't be getting a bit woozy on me, would you?" he asked with some amusement.

"Just tired I think," she said.

"Don't shut your eyes on me, Natasha. Tell me how you got this," he coaxed. The elevator pinged and the door opened. "Come on, there has to be something that isn't classified."

"I'm thinking," she laughed.

"I'm guessing it was a bladed weapon," he reasoned. "The cut looked too neat and clean for it to have been anything else."

"Go on Sherlock, I can neither confirm nor deny anything," she said.

He leaned his head down and smelled her hair. "Aside from the blood, no smoke or chemicals—just the fresh air and the evening—I'm guessing you were outside for most of this mission." They were finally at the right door and JARVIS opened it at Bruce's request.

"I can neither confirm nor give you any hints," she said as he sat her down on an examination table.

"Just keep talking," he said as he took the folded rob from her and looked at the wound again. It had stopped bleeding, so he pulled out some sterile wipes to get the worst of the mess cleared away from the immediate area.

"Did you find any more of my notes?" she asked.

"You practically annotated a couple of my books. I tried texting you last month, but it didn't go through."

"As I said, I can neither confirm . . ."

"Nor give me any real hints. I know. Well, I think I can do this with the super-glue stuff and not have to stitch you up. Lean forward and tilt your head down.

"How much hair are you going to have to cut off?"

"None, if I can get the wound to close, but I've got to disinfect it first." Bruce used some of the newer cleanser that he'd been working on. It did other things, too, but it worked well at breaking up the dried blood so he could wipe the worst of it out of her hair and away from her scalp. He soon had the affected area cleaned and disinfected, so he could use the medical adhesive. Luckily, there was hardly any swelling. He'd used the adhesive a few times before, so he knew how to hold the skin and not overdo it with the purplish goo. He made sure it was dry before he let her sit up and straighten out her hair. Bruce finally got a good look at her face in the bright light of the infirmary. It was beautiful despite the grime. He took a quick look at her pupils to make sure she didn't have a concussion. "Well, shall we find you a room or would you rather have my bed?" he asked.

"I'd take your couch, but I don't want to put you to any trouble."

"No trouble," he said. "Do you think you can walk?"

"Sure," she replied with a tired smile. "By the way, nice socks."

Bruce laughed, "If you like the socks, you'll love the boxers."

"Blue?" she enquired.

"Yes, they're all shades of blue."

He'd made her as comfortable as he could after she'd cleaned up and slipped into one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers, so she must have approved. She settled on his large leather couch with clean sheets and a comforter, despite his numerous pleas to get her to take the bed, but by the time he got up to check on her at 8:00am, she was already gone.

That was the first of many times she asked him to stitch her up at all hours of the day and night. He was amazed at her ability to bounce back, and eventually he was convinced she had some biochemical enhancement in common with Steve and himself. Perhaps that's why she preferred to have him work on her off of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s books? He certainly didn't mind doing minor patch-ups, but he drew the line when it came to concussions and dressing deeper wounds.

The one time she'd really pushed him on this was about eleven months ago, he thought he'd overdosed her on sedatives. Natasha had asked him not to leave her alone, and they'd ended up sleeping in each other's arms. He'd made her breakfast, and they'd had a wonderful day together—even if it had led to being set up with the spider broach. Had it really been just eleven months ago? He chuckled to himself, thinking about how things had changed since then.

Bruce looked up to see his cousin had just finished the labyrinth and he soon joined him at its end.

"Help clear your mind?" Rich asked.

"It does help take you elsewhere," Bruce admitted.

They had started to angle back toward the river on their left when Bruce felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and Adam came to full alert. Bruce stopped and looked around them, but he couldn't spot anything specific. Rich turned to see why Bruce had stopped and the emergency alert system went off on both their phones. Bruce pulled his phone out and examined the screen. It was infuriatingly terse: "Seismic activity detected. Stay tuned for further alerts."

"It's to the east and upriver," Adam informed him.

"How bad?" Bruce asked silently.

Adam paused, "I don't have any way of knowing exactly, but I'm guessing a six on the Richter Scale, but it's a long way off."

Bruce looked over at Richard who was looking every bit as puzzled. "Is the Ohio River Valley prone to earthquakes, Rich?"

"No. Not particularly. The New Madrid Fault is all the way down by the Missouri Boot Heel, past Cairo, Illinois, and along the Mississippi."

"Nothing to the east?" Bruce asked.

"Nothing except . . . Oh, no, that's where they've started fracking under the Ohio," Rich said as he made a pained face.

"Who would frack under the river?!" Bruce asked incredulously. "That's just . . . just . . . not a good idea."

"Poor states need money, and it's one way to fill state coffers," Rich explained. "West Virginia is broke."

Bruce scrubbed his face with his hands in frustration, "The stupidity!"

"I know," said Richard, "and the rest of us downriver get to pay the fiddler when this happens. Ten years ago it was escaped coal sludge, so today it's the pollution and earthquakes from the fracking."

Stacy rode up behind them on a sturdy-looking bicycle. "Well, it's going to take a while to get here, but there may be a serious mess heading down the Ohio."

"Do you have any details on what happened yet?" Bruce asked.

"lt's still pretty sketchy, but there's been an earthquake east of here that's caused problems with the riverbed," she said.

"Hey, you two might want to take a look at the river," Rich called from the crest of the bank.

"Holy . . . it's dropped about ten feet already," Stacy said.

Bruce was working through the math and the possibilities, depending upon the epicenter and whether or not the dams could handle the volume of water and debris. He calculated a very rough volume and speed. "Stacy, we may have as little as an hour before the flood hits. I think it's time to contact Tony."

 **End Notes:** The places in this chapter are real and as true as I could get them to reality. You can easily find pictures of Great American Ball Park and Smale Riverside Park on line. Here is the page about the Black Brigade: mysmaleriverfrontpark black-brigade. htm

We'll have more about the other parts of the park and nearby places next week. Will three Avengers be enough to help with what's coming?

Questions, comments, and conversations are always welcome.


	46. Chapter 46

_Well, at least I got it up before the weekend!_

Chapter 46: Over the Ohio

Tony had taken his time getting his act together after breakfast because he didn't want to bug Pepper till after 7:45am. He knew from experience that she might rise early, but she didn't want to be pestered till after she'd had coffee. Since he wasn't there to hand it to her, he was giving her an extra ten minutes before he texted.

Tony had typed "Good morning, Sweet Cheeks," almost a half hour ago, but he diplomatically waited till 7:55am to hit "send."

He didn't have to wait long for the one-word answer from Pepper: "Skype."

He was on it (doubling down on the encryption in record time) and grinning at Pepper's freshly scrubbed, semi-caffeinated face, which was beautiful and smiling back at him from under some slightly messy bedhead hair—also quite beautiful in his opinion. "So, did Scott take all his little friends with him or do we need to build them their own little farm?"

She shook her head, "No, he took all the girls with him, or I wouldn't have gone back into the commons area." She sipped her coffee languidly and stared at him, waiting for him to continue. "Well, there's no way that is all you want to talk about. What's going on?" she finally asked and took a longer drink from her coffee mug.

"My, you're to the point, and here I am feeling all chatty," he said with a grin. "First, thank you for playing Fairy Godmother and best facilitator and matchmaker in the world."

"Don't forget appointment-maker, intern wrangler, and ring relayer," she added while leaving out the part about espionage in the department store from yesterday morning. "But I did have help. Hap did his usual solid job, and it's been nice having Nick here as backup and Romanoff wrangler, too. "

"Really, why _is_ Fury there? Doesn't he have some important former spymaster stuff to do?" asked Tony. "Not that I'm turning down any help he has to offer."

"He came to talk to Nat and stayed for the party. They're working on some missing person cases. Two of Helen's assistants have disappeared."

"Oh, not Sang and Drury I hope," he said with a grimace.

"Yes, Sang and _Duri_ ," she corrected. "I need to check on Lupita Tomás, too. She's not been in and hasn't called."

"Crap! All of them were with us after Bruce's episode last summer when we had Helen there to help," Tony realized as he quickly connected the obvious dots. He ran his hand over his moustache as he thought. "Any details?"

"Sang and Duri were supposed to be on holiday to Japan, so they weren't missed for several days, but beyond that, nothing was reported till they missed work. S.H.I.E.L.D. is on it now, but we've not had an update yet," Pepper reported. Also, if we can't find Lupita, we'll be reporting her missing today. If S.H.I.E.L.D. is too busy to look into her case, I may not be able to talk Natasha out of doing the legwork," Pepper said as she rubbed her forehead, anticipating what a headache that would be.

"We can't let her do that," Tony blurted, but he knew no one was going to stop Natasha if she put her mind to something. "I mean, there are too many weird coincidences already. If someone is looking for information on Bruce, she's got a target on her back already. If they want a piece of Bruce . . . well, she'd be bringing one right to them," he concluded with an uncomfortable squirm in his seat.

"I may let you break that to her yourself, so I'm not the one getting punched," Pepper said blandly before she drank the last of her coffee. "I will not be the one to poke our sweet Russian momma bear; besides, I'm sure she's thought of that already."

"Have Nick talk to her. He's one of the few people she'll listen to when it comes to this kind of business," Tony suggested. _Right, Nick will listen then she'll drag him along,_ he thought.

"She'll listen to Bruce, too, but you probably don't want to mention this to him . . . yet, right?" Pepper asked, trying to get on the same page.

"If Nat knows about it, surely she told him, right?" He wrinkled his brow in thought, "Well, he didn't mention it at breakfast soooo . . ." Tony sat there drumming his fingers on his chin and looking thoughtful for several seconds.

"Well, maybe she didn't tell him," Pepper suggested. "There were plenty of other things going on, and she's been pretty tired. The nausea and hormones and energy dips are kicking her butt."

"Well, ask her because I'd rather she be the one to tell him since she knows more of the details," Tony reasoned. "You know he'll have questions."

"Don't worry, I'll ask," Pepper sighed. "Just don't blame me if Bruce gets ticked because no one thought to tell him."

"Fine, Pep, text me if she hasn't, and I'll tell him," Tony said.

"See. Now that wasn't so hard," Pepper said with a pleased look. "Presentation ready?" she asked to change the subject as she arranged some papers in front of her.

"Everything but delivered and the bows taken. I might go up and scope out the auditorium in a little while."

"So where is Bruce? Is he ready for his tomorrow?" Pepper asked.

"Done and ready, too. He should be with his cousin on a walking tour of a park on the riverbank by now. This has really turned into old home weekend for him. Which reminds me, did I tell you whom we had dinner with last night?"

"A couple hundred science types," she teased.

"Yes, in the general sense, but specifically the former Dr. Ross and her husband Dr. Sampson," he said with a puckish smirk.

"Ah, Betty and Lee! How are they? Isn't she close to her due date?" Pepper asked with interest.

"Doing well and, yes, she's looking very well-rounded."

"Hey, she's at least eight months along, so be kind like I know you can," Pepper reminded him.

"I am trying to be kind. She had that beautiful pregnant-lady luminescence, and we all four had a nice time without a cross word being spoken. We kept the torture and blood shed to a minimum: kid pictures were shown and blood and cell samples were exchanged, but that's because she's going to be helping us with some of the genetic testing."

Pepper nodded, "That, for once, is good news and a pretty smart idea—as long as you didn't tip off anyone."

"Nat and Nick would be proud—secret handoffs and everything," he beamed.

"Ah, do I detect a second career to take on in your retirement?" she kidded.

"Ha! I just blocked the eavesdroppers with a little tech and kept Betty company while Bruce and Lee did the fun stuff."

Pepper smiled indulgently, "Well, you seem to have had a good time, too."

"I have," he said with a satisfied smile as he ticked items off on his fingers. "Saw my bestest lab partner through a 'health issue.' Played Cupid. Ate too much shawarma and really good ice cream. Survived the rubber-chicken dinner. Serenaded a lovely couple and celebrated. There's only one thing that would have made it better."

"Decent champagne?"

"No . . . we had the good stuff here. No. Sharing it with you, Pep. I miss you," he said with his most sincere pout.

She grinned at him and gave him an air kiss. "Well, right now I stink and need to get in the shower."

"I would still love to do unspeakably nice things to you," Tony said.

"Oh, you are tempting me sorely, Mr. Stark," but I'm having to make up for Thursday's lost work today.

"All right," he said sulkily, "but we've got a date back here at 10:00pm. No excuses."

"No excuses." She gave him that look that implied, _Be as good as I know you can be_. "I love you, Tony."

"I do, too. I mean I love you, too," he teased.

"Go work out," she said and waved her good-bye.

Tony rubbed his eyes. A workout was probably a good idea, but with all the former agents and hired muscle, the hotel's gym was probably backed up. Mal had offered to get him equipment in his suite, but he'd nixed that since he didn't want his rooms smelling like a gym. Maybe the stairs would do if he got a little more desperate. He wasn't into the kind of yoga-jujitsu mash-up that Bruce did, so he ignored the exercise mats he knew were in the sitting room's cupboard, and he walked over to the window to look out on the square and watch the protesters gather. The update on the briefing said they were from some fringe group that was anti-science of all things, yet they were savvy enough to be organized via social media, and they didn't have an issue with charter busses. The people milling on the square didn't exactly look like Old Order Amish or off-grid luddites either. At least they were sticking to the square and not heading down to the river where his friends were.

The next moment, the windows rattled and Tony detected a tremor running through the building. It felt no worse than a large construction vehicle rumbling down the street, but something had certainly shifted somewhere. Tony's phone started to vibrate and sound the emergency alert alarm. He pulled it out and sighed as he read the detail-free text. It didn't look like anyone below was panicking even though there was a large screen clearly displaying the same information on the north end of square. Tony took a moment to check the US Geological Survey's page, but it was too early for more details. _Well, how bad could it be?_ He slid the phone back in his pocket and went for a short stroll down the hall to see if Mal or the techs knew anything. Several of them were gathered around a large screen television display in the open meeting area. The television was tuned to CNN, and there was coverage coming in from a Wheeling, West Virginia, news station to the east. At first Tony thought he was looking at a sinkhole, but then he realized it was the Ohio River and the bottom seemed to have opened up to swallow the water and everything else it could suck down a whirlpool. It was hard to judge size, but he was pretty sure those were trees and not bushes, logs and not sticks, and an actual johnboat and not a toy.

His phone rang with an unfamiliar number and he answered it. "Stark here."

"Just a second, sir. I have Dr. Banner with me," said a feminine voice.

"Bruce?" Tony asked.

"Right here, Tony. (Thanks, Stacy.) I'm using my phone to try and do some calculations, so I borrowed this one. Any news on how far the epicenter is up the Ohio?"

"I'm looking at coverage out of Wheeling, West Virginia, and it looks like the bottom dropped out of the river near the Willow Island Lock and Dam. Wherever that is."

"That's a good way above Wheeling. There shouldn't be a major population center there till it gets to Parkersburg. Damn, this really doesn't account for a ten-foot river drop this far to the south. Are there any similar situations between here and Wheeling?" Bruce asked.

"They've not reported any on the television yet, but there's bound to be some explanation. Crap, you said _ten feet_?! What's caused this?"

"Yah, it's almost like low tide down here," Bruce remarked. "My money is on the fracking that's been going on upriver. Luckily, the river is deep enough here that nothing is stranded, but it's really drawing a lot of water out of the tributaries and pulling anything not tied down into the Ohio. I hope you brought your suit because the water that should be here is somewhere else, and you know it's going to come back eventually with some consequences."

"Okay, now we're getting something on the television," Tony said watching the coverage. "Above the Captain Anthony Meldahl Locks and Dam, there's been another one of these sinkhole whirlpool things of some sort, but it looks like it's about filled up and settling back down. They've had to shut the dam and locks down, but they think they'll be able to cope with the back flow. That should explain where your water went."

"I'm pretty sure Meldahl is the last set of locks and dam upriver from us. Yah, Rich says that's it," Bruce replied. "Hold it. I think we've got an aftershock coming."

This time, Tony felt a much more distinct tremor, and it lasted at least fifteen seconds. The windows rattled and a framed piece of art fell from the wall. Having lived in California, this didn't feel all that serious to Tony, but this part of the country wasn't exactly prone to quakes. Once it had stopped, he returned to the phone. "How are you doing, Bruce?"

"We're fine, Tony, but you might want to suit up."

"What's going on?"

"I just saw one of the piers on the Roebling Bridge shift. That's not good on a suspension bridge, especially one that's almost 150 years old. I'm afraid this is looking like a possible Code Green," Bruce said.

"Are you sure?" Tony asked as he thought of all the rules and agreements and possibly laws they might be breaking.

"Yes, get down here. I'll wait as long as I can." At that, the phone hung up.

"Dammit, Bruce!" he swore.

"Well, we knew it couldn't all go smoothly," said Mal who had walked up beside him. "I take it we have a situation and possibly a Code Green?"

"Right, it's pending, but not for long," he said. "Could you call Jenn? We are about to get into some deep legal waters."

"Done, now get going. Clint is there, but it sounded like you're needed."

"Which bridge is the Roebling?" he asked over his shoulder.

"The blue one that looks like the Brooklyn Bridge. You can't miss it," Mal called after him.

He'd brought the Mark 47 or Briefcase-II with him, but he sent out a call for a couple of suits that could do the heavy lifting in or out of water since that seemed to cover their possible needs. He could have also called in VERONICA-II, but he thought that might tick someone off. One thing they did not need was someone ticked off unnecessarily, but he sent the standby command anyway.

((o))

Bruce handed Rich his phone and baseball cap. "Thanks, for being my valet," he said. "Usually, I leave everything on the jet or wherever it falls." He'd returned Stacy's phone as soon as he hung up with Tony, so at least he didn't have to worry about that. She was now up on the traffic circle at the north end of the approach to the Roebling, doing what she could to get vehicles moving.

Rich held his arm out to support Bruce and laughed as he struggled with the layers of clothing, "Trust me, you're no worse than one of the boys when they played ball. I hate to say it, but I was hoping to get to meet the Big Guy, just not under these circumstances."

Bruce gave the bigger man an eye roll, "All you had to do was ask, Rich." His cousin shrugged and folded Bruce's coat and shirts as he stripped down to the TechUWear. Bruce wished the shoes could go last, but no such luck since he was in a pair of jeans Nat had picked out, which were invariably tighter fitting than what he would have bought. Bruce could sense Adam's growing excitement as his temperature started to edge up despite being exposed to the cool temperatures. _Hold on, we need to know what to do first_ , he reminded Adam as he finished stripping down. Footwear was definitely the next thing on his wish list for the TechUWear people, but at least there wasn't snow or ice on the ground.

About then they could all hear the groaning from the cables and the superstructure. Clint and the other team members were now helping Stacy and the police on both ends of the bridge to block it off from further traffic and clear everyone out. Unfortunately, that was taking longer than expected since Fridays brought in a lot of school groups to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center on the Ohio side; unfortunately, many northbound groups exited the highway in Covington, Kentucky, and used the Roebling Bridge to cross the river for easy access to the center. The historic blue bridge handled plenty of street and foot traffic on a daily basis, so if it dropped in the river, the consequences were going to be serious. It could easily block the channel and the river traffic, especially the long barges that hauled coal and other goods, too.

Bruce watched the barges up and downriver maneuver to the middle of the channel where the deepest water was. He couldn't help but think of the wall of water that might be coming. If the dams upriver held and released the water gradually, there wouldn't be a problem. If they let it out too fast or the dams were overrun or failed, all bets were off. He hoped the five bridges straddling the Ohio there could stand the stresses. As he listened to the grumbling of the Roebling, he was beginning to have his doubts.

Adam growled, "We need to get a look at the base of that piling and figure out what happened and fix it."

"I agree," Bruce told him silently, "but the water is too murky to see. You'd be doing it by touch."

"I think I figured that out already," Adam said, getting a little irritated. "Why are we dragging out feet?"

"Listen, Tony should be able to scan it a lot more efficiently than you can feel it up," Bruce explained. "What do you notice above the waterline?" he asked as he stared at the cables of the suspension bridge.

"You're right. Something is off kilter," Adam noted. "What we need are the walls they put around the piers, so the water can be pumped out from around them."

"Unfortunately, I'm fresh out of cofferdams," Bruce noted. "This is why we're the physicist and not the engineer."

Adam chuckled at that, but the bridge started groaning again. "Where is Tony?" Adam wondered. Bruce was doing his best to keep Adam toned down because once they transitioned, he definitely became the junior partner in this team-up. Bruce's phone rang, and Rich pulled it out for him. It was Clint who was on the south end of the bridge.

"Hey, Bruce?"

"Yah, I'm still here."

"I know you're not wanting to get green any sooner than necessary, but we could sure use a pair of big hands over here. The Covington Police want to clear vehicles off the bridge, but we've got two busses with bumpers locked up. There are also some abandon vehicles gumming things up, so the tow trucks can't even get through. I talked to the Covington Police Chief, and they are willing to deputize us."

A flash of pain shot through Bruce's core and he clinched his jaw to keep from screaming. "Adam, that's enough!" he thought, and breathed deeply as he brought himself back under control.

 _Sorry, I just want to help. Please let me do it_ , Adam pleaded.

Bruce took a deep breath and let it out in puffs before he spoke aloud in a deepening voice, "Clint, I'm on my way." He handed Rich the phone and stepped back. As he let go, the pain from the transition embraced him and his frame expanded while the mass and energy from the Gamma flooded into him. The pain initially doubled him over before he clenched his hands and threw his shoulders back as his musculature swelled. The green Gamma flowed through his blood from his inner core and marrow to his limbs, burning like an emerald fire through his arteries. Bruce had expected a quick and rough mental transition as well, but he felt Adam gently embrace him, strong and sure of himself, with a purring rumble to shield him from further pain. Adam's presence was totally familiar and intimate, yet alien and unknowable. "Take everything you need. Take it all," Bruce thought as he surrendered, giving all his strength and resources to Adam as he exchanged places. He was tempted to let go completely and seek blissful oblivion, but he rejected that and settled into the spot Adam liked to occupy where he could observe without being too much of a distraction yet still be of help if needed. As he settled into the "peanut gallery," Bruce immediately sensed the difference. Instead of feeling like he was shoved in the back row, he could see, feel, and hear almost on par with normal if he focused. He wondered if he could tell where Adam stopped and he began.

Adam stared at his hands, huge and green and powerful, as he flexed them. He rocked slowly back and forth shifting his weight to get a feel for his balance. The pain was still present, but this felt distant, manageable. He breathed in the cool air. This felt good. It felt right. The TechUWear suit had successfully transitioned with him and pulsed with his heartbeat as it absorbed some of the excess heat from the Gamma and adjusted to his body and the environment. The purple half had added detailing similar to his old uniform pants and the top had remained white. He could feel the web of fibers breathe and hollow out to add a layer of insulating air like a polar bear's outer fur. He felt something snake up the back of his neck and luckily realized it was a communication interface before he crushed it or pulled it off.

"Well, that wasn't in the video," Bruce remarked.

"That was freaking creepy," Adam grumbled silently to Bruce and gave a shiver. He could feel other parts of the suit coming on line, but he didn't have time to deal with them at the moment. Adam looked down at Rich who was gazing up at him with a mix of surprise and wonder. "Nice to meet you, Rich," Adam said in as warm and friendly of a voice as he could manage. Rich's arms were full, so Adam didn't try to shake hands.

"My pleasure," Rich said. "I meant to tell Bruce to remember that the state line starts at the water's edge, so as long as you're over water, you're in Kentucky, not Ohio."

"Okay," said Adam, "I'll let him know. Thanks, I better get moving."

"Thank you. God's speed," Rich said gravely.

Adam smiled and nodded before he turned to face the bridge. He probably could have leaped the river, but he wanted to get a closer look at the structure. The piling below the water level on this end apparently had moved at some point during the last tremor, but as curious as he was to have an answer to that mystery, he was needed on the topside near the Kentucky end. Despite the intermittent metallic groans, nothing appeared to be ready to give way just yet. If he took it nice and easy, he should be able to just walk across and get a good look at the cables along the way. Stacy and yet another former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent were conferring with a group of Cincinnati police officers near the traffic circle at the north end of the bridge. Adam walked up the last of the slope and steps between the park and the street, keeping his hands relaxed and at his sides. As he approached, he waved at Stacy, "Hey, Clint just called and the Covington Police Chief wants my help on the other end of the bridge. I'd like to walk across and get a look at the cables. Is everyone good with that?"

Stacy and her partner played it cool. "We don't have a problem," she said and looked at the police officers who looked at each other. They clearly hadn't been briefed on what to do yet, and they were all relatively young. The ranking officer who'd just hung up his com spoke up, "I don't think there's a problem. Just stay in the middle and tread easy on the deck, okay?"

Adam grinned, "It's a deal."

Bruce was certain there were rules for reciprocity between the two cities and states, but he wasn't sure how the politics played out. "Just get us over the water, and we'll be out of their jurisdiction," he told Adam.

As he carefully set foot on the metal grates of the deck, Adam was finally able to get a clear look at the trapped vehicles on the other end. The cars that were able to move had all been cleared from the bridge, which left the southbound side empty but the northbound lane clogged at the far end where the busses were bumper-locked. The bridge only had two lanes, so the busses behind those were stuck because what appeared to be a tractor-trailer had managed to wedge itself sideways. "Hmph. No one mentioned the part about the jackknifed trailer," Adam said aloud.

"They never do," Bruce chuckled dryly. "Take it slow and let's get a look at the cables where they attach above and below."

Adam scanned the graceful, curving lines of light blue painted iron and steel. The smaller lines connected and were wound into larger strands as they intercepted the sizable main cable, which was almost too thick for Adam to get even his large hands around. "I'm not spotting anything obvious," he said. Then he heard the groaning of metal on stone atop the archway above him and felt the vibrations with his feet. Adam touched the com's earpiece and hoped he'd gotten it to engage. "Clint?"

"Right here, Big Guy."

"Okay, when Tony gets here, we're checking out the top of the northeast buttress on the arch. That's where the noise is," Adam reported on his com. "Sorry, I'm taking so long. I promised the officer I wouldn't damage anything, so no hopping, skipping, or jumping."

Clint laughed, "That's a promise you should definitely keep, Big Guy."

Adam soon reached the two locked-up busses. They were both empty of passengers and driverless. The bumper of the back bus was wedged under the front buss's rear bumper. "Nothing looks too complicated," he told Clint.

"Good, come over here and get your paperwork out of the way first," Clint instructed him, so Adam nimbly straddled the hood of the jackknifed trailer that blocked his path and continued on to the end of the bridge where several Covington Police Officers were milling with people in suits and winter coats. He could see a group of youngsters loading onto a bus in an adjoining parking lot. A little girl recognized him and soon cries of "Hulk! Hulk!" broke out, so he smiled and waved. Sometimes being recognized wasn't so bad.

Clint waved him over to a makeshift table on a squad car's hood. There were two older male officers, a woman in a pantsuit and coat, and an older woman in a dark skirt pulling her overcoat tight around her. Adam slowed down and kept his arms loose and at his sides again, trying not to be any more intimidating than he already was.

Clint introduced Adam to Chief Chuck Kilpatrick, Mayor Arlene Carol, and Judge Phoebe Johnson. "Pleased to meet you, err, Mr. Hulk," Chief Kilpatrick said. "We've been on the phone with Ms. Walters, so I think everything is in order. If you could place your thumb here on the pad, we'll get you sworn in." He held up a StarkPad, which made Adam grin, and he gently touched the tip of his thumb on the screen. "Thank you, Sir," the senior officer said. "Are you okay with a Bible or would you prefer to swear on something else?"

"If the Bible is good enough for you, it's good enough for me," Adam rumbled and gave them his most charming lopsided grin, which got a chuckle out of several people. Adam placed two left fingers on the Bible since that's all that would fit and held up his right palm. Judge Johnson stepped forward and quickly read off the instructions before going over the oath, only about half of which Adam could catch. The bird-like woman spoke so fast that when she stopped and looked up at Adam expectantly, he guessed and said, "I will?" She beamed a big smile back up at him, so he must have been close to right. She concluded with one last sentence that had the words _deputized_ , _Banner_ , and _Hulk_ in it. Adam guessed that was good enough to stand up in court. "Thanks," he said. Part of him was a little disappointed there wasn't an actual badge involved.

"Come on, Big Guy," Clint directed. "Let's get the trailer straightened out first."

"Have you heard anything from Tony?" Adam asked as they both walked back onto the bridge.

Clint almost growled, "Stark made the mistake of asking for permission to bring in a couple of specialty suits, so he and Jenn are fighting it out with some of Ross's legal minions and our favorite local Congressman. Something about having too much potential firepower in one place."

Both Adam and Bruce groaned at the same time. "I thought that politician had retired already," Adam remarked.

"End of the month, Big Guy," Clint said, "and not a day too soon."

Adam blew out a sigh. The tractor-trailer was about a quarter of the way across the bridge. The driver had tried to turn the northbound truck around on the narrow bridge and nearly put it into a perfect L-shaped jackknife. "Where is the driver for this thing?" he asked.

"In custody. I have the keys. Let me put it in neutral." Clint climbed into the cab and made the adjustments. "Can you lift and pull the front back this way so it's straight?" Clint pointed to the empty lane on his right.

"Sure, just get clear. Do you think the trailer will still roll?" Adam asked.

"We'll have to find out," Clint said with a shrug.

Adam maneuvered himself between the truck's front bumper and the struts that held up part of the deck. One step back and he'd slip between the deck and the sidewalk into open air. If he were normal-sized, he'd have nothing between him and the river below. As it was, he didn't plan on getting a foot stuck sideways. Bruce had a minimal knowledge of commercial tractor-trailers, but he'd learned how to drive a stick-shift and tow and back a boat trailer with his Uncle Mike and Jenn's father, his Uncle Morris. Bending down in that narrow space was a bit awkward, but he reached far enough under the front of the truck to grab the frame and lifted the front axle off the deck. Once he had it raised high enough, Adam stepped sideways to his left and pulled as he stepped back so the vehicle was headed north in the southbound lane. The truck's back wheels followed without a problem, so Adam set the truck's front down on the deck. "You remembered to take the brakes off, right?" he asked Clint and got an eye roll for an answer. "Sorry, I had to ask. Can we detach the trailer, so I can drag it back?"

"Yah, that landing gear is buggered up," Clint said as he examined the trailer. "You may want to lift and walk it back on the rear wheels. I can just put the truck in reverse and follow you bobtail back to the south bank," Clint said.

"Let's do that," Adam confirmed. Part of him wanted just to toss the stupid load to the shore. He could do it with one hand, but he liked being out and physically doing something constructive. He certainly wanted to do it again, so he was going to cooperate in every way he could, even if meant walking on eggshells across the entire 1,000-foot span. Bruce reminded him that this was good for the community and was helping build a positive image for him and the team. That reminded Adam of something. He looked over his shoulder back at the north side of the bridge. Even at this distance, Adam could see there was a crowd gathering on the far bank. Clint was busy disconnecting brake hoses and wires, so his attention was focused on the task at hand. "Hey, Clint," Adam said, "look at the Cincinnati side."

Clint looked up and whispered a curse word under his breath, "We knew this was a possibility when we got out of bed this morning. We just didn't count on an earthquake in the middle of it." Clint finished up disconnecting the trailer. "Let's get this done, Big Guy."

"Can you tell who or what they are?" Bruce asked as Adam took one last look before returning his attention to the trailer.

"I bet some of them got here on a charter bus," Adam said aloud as he found a good place to grip near the crippled front landing gear before he lifted the trailer and began walking it back down the slope of the bridge. The whole thing wasn't that heavy, but it was awkward to steer.

"Everything depends upon a red wheelbarrow . . ." Bruce quoted from the short William Carlos Williams poem.

Adam snorted and then laughed. "Don't make me drop this, Bru, or I will tell everyone your nickname," he threatened silently.

"I really don't have a problem with that, but I don't want you to drop this. There are bound to be plenty of cameras focused on you as it is," Bruce said.

Adam did his best not to lose his focus on what he was doing. He heard Clint start up the diesel behind him. It would take a few minutes to warm up before he could move it. Adam was glad to see a path had been cleared for the trailer at the end of the bridge so he could just walk it onto a side street. There was now a local news crew at the edge of a growing crowd. He decided to ignore them as much as possible. A handful of police officers cleared back the crowd and followed him to secure the trailer once he set it down. A couple of them walked him back to the bridge. He and Bruce found this amusing, but the "puny bodyguards" did keep people at a safe distance. Clint was now parking the truck on a different side street, so Adam stood by and waited for him at the foot of the bridge. Adam crossed his arms and carefully leaned against one of the stone footings that matched the tall bridge piers and buttresses. He finally took a look at the people watching him. Most appeared to be office workers, but there were a few families out for walks and people running or exercising. The reporter and the cameraman had shifted their angle to get him in the background. He was glad he didn't have to wait long before Clint was back.

"Have you heard anything from Tony or Jenn or anyone else?" he asked Clint as his teammate walked up.

"I got a text from Mal. We need to finish up here and see if Tony makes it through the red tape before we can decide what to do next. How are you holding up?"

"We're good. Just not looking forward to what's on the other side of the bridge," he explained.

Clint leaned in close as they started back across the bridge to untangle the busses, "How long can you stay Hulk?"

"As long as you need, but it may take a toll on my sunny personality," Adam warned.

"Tony wants to get a look at the bridge to see if you two can stabilize it. The problem is that Ross has commandeered some Ohio National Guard equipment and he's making the usual threats. Although Kentucky owns everything up to the shoreline, if the bridge isn't stable, they can't defend it so well from this side of the structure. Not that they'd be bringing in tanks, but the damage is on the northern end of the structure, right where anyone working on it could be harassed. To top it off, Ross has someone upriver at the dam holding back as much water for as long as possible so it can effect the shoreline, which is the state line as well."

Adam rubbed his temples, "What is the point of this? Holding back that water is the opposite of what they should be doing. When the dams in West Virginia start releasing their water, it's going to domino flood right down the Ohio. Instead of being something this bridge can weather, it's going to wash it out."

"I agree with you 100%, Buddy. Let's get these buses apart and hope things are hashed out before we get done." They had arrived at the vehicles, so Clint jumped onto the first bus and released its emergency break and put it in neutral. "Go for it!" he called out the open door. Adam reached under the front bus's rear bumper and lifted with one hand while he pressed downward slightly on the rear bus's bumper and held it steady. The two came apart with a metallic scrape, but the damage looked superficial. Clint put the emergency brake back on and notified Chief Fitzpatrick that everything was a go, so the drivers could come move them off the bridge. He pulled out his phone to check for messages, but there were no updates.

Adam leaned down and looked in the door to make eye contact with his teammate. Clint shook his head. "Come on," said Adam. "If we don't ask, they can't tell us no." Clint grinned and joined Adam as they walked toward the Ohio side of the bridge. "If we slip over to the walkway on the west side, I can jump up from the back of the pillar and land with the least amount of impact. They won't be expecting that so it should delay them enough for us to get some video and assess the situation for Tony. I doubt we'll get away without being seen, but we are deputized and we are in our jurisdiction," Adam pointed out as he looked down at Clint who was still grinning. "I'd do it myself, but I can't hold a phone," Adam added. Clint looked like he wanted to crackup. "Well, say something. I thought this was an okay plan," Adam said.

"I don't know how she did it, but Nat has completely corrupted both you and Banner," Clint said as he shook his head.

"Tasha?" Adam said with mock seriousness. "Never," he snorted before cracking up. The two continued on until they were about halfway across and the cables were easier to jump. "Need a lift?" Adam asked.

"As long as it's a lift and not a throw," Clint smirked.

"Picky, picky," Adam scolded. "Grab the wrist," he said and swung Clint easily across the cables and the gap in the deck like a crane boom before carefully doing a hop-step over it himself. He was pleased at the lack of a damaging impact with the walk's deck.

"Taking your ninja pills?" Clint joked.

"Yep, I don't have to smash things unless I feel like it," Adam replied dryly. "I sneak up on them in a skintight purple and white suit. Nobody suspects a thing."

Clint ran his hand across his jaw, but he couldn't keep from smiling. "Where have you been hiding? I know Bruce can be fun to be around when he's out of the damn lab, but how long have you been this snarky?"

"I've always been this 'snarky.' You just weren't in my head to hear it."

"You know what I mean."

Adam sighed, "Seriously, Clint, look at whom I hang around with. When the pain is manageable and I can put more than two words together, it's easier for me to be a smartass. It's hard to be snarky when it hurts too much to think and my senses are drowning me wit input."

They were getting close enough to see the crowd milling on the other side of the river now. There were, indeed, several signs demanding repentance and "No More Monsters!" Adam's ironic favorite was "Abomination = Termination." Bruce hoped Rich had headed back to the cathedral. He didn't like to think of his cousin mixing it up with that bunch because he would be in the middle of a lot of angry people, even if he had on his priestly collar. Well, Rich was a big man and a veteran, so he ought to be able to handle himself, but . . .

Adam looked over at Clint. "Could you text my phone and tell my cousin to get back to the cathedral?"

"No problem," Clint said and quickly sent off the message.

"Thanks. Rich is just mouthy enough to get into something," Adam explained.

"Sounds like my kind of minister," Clint said.

"Yah, it does run in the family. Okay, before we get ready to make the leap, this suit is supposed to have some straps or handles in the back between my shoulder blades. They put them in for Tasha to use, but you should be able to figure them out. They were supposed to be a surprise for her."

"Well, I'm surprised," Clint said brightly. "Let's wait till we're behind the pier, and I'll find them." They were close enough now to hear the metallic groaning coming from above and the noise of the crowd. Adam had had about enough. He nodded at Clint and lengthened his strides without transferring the impact to the walk deck. Once he reached the sheltered spot behind the large stone column, he knelt down on his knees so Clint could get a look at the suit. Clint pulled his gloves off and ran his hands across the material, but nothing happened.

"Try slapping your palms down," Adam suggested.

Clint laid down a firm double smack between Adam's shoulder blades and the material responded by opening and reforming into straps that ran reinforcement around the front and sides of the top portion. "Wow, this is freaking awesome. I could even stand in these and shoot if we needed to do that."

"Just no horse jokes, okay?"

"Oh, no, you're too big for a horse anyway. Stark is going to give us both Legolas-riding-an-oliphant hell, Big Guy." They both looked at each other and started laughing.

"Shut up and hang on," Adam finally said, and Clint grabbed the straps so they wrapped around his wrists, and he tucked his knees in under him as if he was riding bareback. Adam backed up about 20 feet and sprang vertically like a cat. The cross-section of the squared arch was about 150 feet above the bridge's deck. Adam landed as light-footed as he could and took a few steps forward to the middle of the structure. Clint slid down to the gravel-topped deck, and they both looked around at the huge blue cables that threaded through on each side of the arch's corners. They didn't even have to compare the two sides to see the metal collar on the east was pulling loose and the huge cable was starting to fray. If the cable hadn't been twisted, the strands would have already sprung loose like the high-tension wires they were. Just one could effortlessly rip a person in two, and these bundles were easily as thick as Adam's thighs.

"Stay back from the northern edge," Bruce warned Adam. "You two don't need to be spotted any sooner than necessary.

Clint was already taking video images with his phone and forwarding them to Tony, Jenn, and Mal.

Adam stared across the river and tried to estimate if it had fallen any further, but all he could tell from this far up was that it hadn't risen. He looked back to the north and scanned the skyline, hoping to catch a glimpse of some familiar red armor, but no such luck. Clint was done taking video, so now they needed to decide what to do. "Did you post it up for the public?" Adam asked.

"Mal is having it edited first, but it's going up," Clint explained.

The bridge picked that moment to resume groaning, and Adam had to cover his ears until it stopped. "Geeze, can we get down now?" he complained.

Clint held up his hand to hang on as he read a text. "We need to wait on Tony."

"Oh, come on. He's turned into Godot by now," Adam complained.

"No, just give him a minute," Clint said. "Look over on Riverside Drive by the ballpark."

Adam moved to the east side of the deck and stood beside the low wall at the edge. Riverside Drive was the last street parallel to the river's edge. A convoy of three tractor-trailer rigs with what appeared to be some sort of metal sheeting was making its way to the edge of the shore below the park. As they pulled over and came to a halt, a familiar metallic suit streaked by and appeared to take a closer look at the bridge as it circled. To both Clint and Adam's surprise, another suit of a much bulkier design also flew by and then pulled up for a landing beside them. Bruce immediately recognized it as Mark 48 or Igor-2, a heavy-lifting specialty armor. Because of its unusual stocky design, Adam was reminded a bit of VERONICA, but the blue and silver color scheme helped keep him from going into a flashback. The first suit to fly by now landed as well and revealed Tony as the visor came up. The sleek Suitcase-2, March 47, was mostly red and silver but it sported some gold detailing as well.

"So, where's the Cofferdam Party? I brought the heavy metal? Let's get moving, Br- Ad- whatever you're going my now, Big Guy, because Ross is bringing some of his friends and they're going to try and crash us. Ever worn armor before, Clint?"

"No. No thank you unless it's absolutely necessary," Clint said.

"It might make a smoother way down," Adam suggested.

"Okay, but only for the trip down," Clint insisted.

"Well, make up your mind," Adam said, "because Ross is already here."


	47. Chapter 47

**Summary:** Natasha wakes up with horrible nausea and thinks of visiting the Barton Farm the previous October with Bruce to take her mind off it.

 **Notes:** Some of you demanded it (well, asked politely), so I went ahead and wrote the fluff and smut flashback chapter with just Natasha and Bruce. This does not advance the plot back in Cincinnati in the "present," but I hope it makes some people happy . . . for a little while. Many, many thanks to Autumn_Froste for her beta-riffic help on this.

47: On a Borrowed Blanket

Natasha had already thrown up once, but her stomach was apparently going for the trifecta before breakfast—hell, before she could get in the shower—because all she seemed to be able to do was make a run for the bathroom every time she tried to sit up. After a half hour of the up-and-down routine, she got smart and stayed down.

"FRIDAY?" she finally croaked.

"I'm right here, Dear," the Interface said, sounding surprisingly empathetic.

"If anybody asks for me, tell them I'm sleeping in this morning," she said miserably. She didn't want to bother Pepper or Nick this morning, so she lay there and thought about other things to get her mind off the nausea. She thought about being at the Barton Farm. Maybe she'd call Laura later, but she was probably just getting the kids off to school now. That in turn led Natasha to think about the fun she and Bruce had when they visited the farm last fall.

((o))

"Well, this is odd. I guess there's no one home," Natasha said as she slowly pulled the borrowed silver sports car into the gravel-covered yard beside the barn.

Bruce checked his phone. "Ah, now, I'm getting a backlog of email and texts. Here we go. I've got one from Laura. She says Coop's class has a Halloween Party today and the 'Room Mother' went into labor, so she's filling in. The spare key is above the lintel if you fort yours, so make ourselves at home. She and the kids will be back around 4:30pm, and Clint will be back before dark." Bruce grinned, "That's four and half hours with just you and me in a big, old house on a picturesque farm. Whatever shall we do, Ms. Romanoff?"

Natasha looked over at Bruce with a much slyer grin as she set the emergency brake, "First, we'll unpack the car. Then we should go for a walk. I've not shown you the back part of the property yet. There are some nice woods and meadows and a creek we could explore. Nobody ever goes back there."

"My, that sounds enticing," he said, his voice getting low and husky.

Their boots crunched on the gravel as they gathered up their luggage and headed down the path to the American Gothic-style wooden house with its broad porch and decorative wooden scrollwork. They set their bags down, and Natasha used an antique milk can as a step to launch her leap high enough to grab the key from the lintel. Her foot seemed to slip and she landed in Bruce's arms. "Faker," he said, but he kissed her as she wrapper her arms around his neck and a leg around his waist. "Are we going inside or should I . . .?"

She slid back to the porch's floor, "Inside." They were both breathing a bit heavily, but they grabbed the luggage and Nat unlocked the door. Laura had left a note for them on the kitchen counter: "Sandwich fixings are in the fridge. Help yourself. P.S. Save Clint a cupcake."

"Now that just makes me want to hide that last cupcake," Natasha said nonchalantly.

"Laura left you a dozen," Bruce said as he lifted the lid on the covered cake pedestal. They were chocolate and vanilla with orange icing. He pulled a chocolate one out before he replaced the cover and peeled off the paper liner. He casually leaned back against the counter and held it out for her in his left hand.

"Why, Dr. Banner, are you tempting me?" she asked.

"Looks pretty tempting to me," he said as he took a dollop of frosting with his right index finger and slowly brought it to his lips.

"Mine!" she said as she sprang forward and crushed her lips onto his, pinning him against the counter with her body. He barely managed to set the cupcake down on the countertop as they began kissing around his finger, getting icing all over each other's lips. Bruce extricated his digits and kept kissing her as he worked his hands under her jacket and pulled her hips toward him. She broke off their kiss. "All right, Big Guy. Let's slow things down a bit," she said as much for her own benefit as his.

They both looked at each other and started to chuckle and giggle since their faces were streaked with the orange icing in various spots. "Eat your cupcake," Bruce said as he turned to grab a paper towel and wet it down. Natasha took a big bite, and offered him some. He knew what she was planning, but he took his bite and let her shove it in.

"Younr sno hnelpful," he said with his mouth still half full of chocolate cake.

She laughed and took the paper towel from his hand and wiped them both down. "I'm always helpful," Natasha said.

"Thanks," Bruce said as he took off his glasses to clean them.

Nat handed him a fresh dishcloth to dry them with. "Hungry yet or do you want to wait till after our walk."

"Walk first; sandwich later," he said. "Let me take the bags up." By the time he came back down stairs, she'd rounded up a couple of bottles of water and an old quilted blanket, which she'd stuffed into a canvas shopping bag.

As they left, Natasha locked the door and pocketed the key. She'd finally remembered that hers was on a chain in her jewelry box back home. "I left them a note just in case someone gets home early," she said, and they set off for the path behind the barn holding hands. The sky was part sun and part cottony clouds with a bit of breeze to keep things interesting on the unusually warm day. Luckily, the dirt and rock trail into the woods was dry and easy going, but Bruce was a little surprised when Nat looked up and gave him a wink before she dropped his hand and took off down the trail at a jog. They both had on hiking boots, so they weren't going anywhere too fast, but she could almost always beat him in a foot race. He wasn't too worried as she pulled ahead because the trail was easy to follow and the changing fall foliage was a beautiful distraction. He watched her back as she ran with the dappling of the sunlight falling on her, and a contented growl, no, a purring that he could feel started deep in his chest. A voice in his head said he should reach out and envelop her in his arms. He made himself slow down because he was starting to get tunnel vision that felt way too predatory. Bruce didn't remember everything about Hulk chasing her on the Helicarrier, but he was starting to get some momentary flashes of pursuing her through the underbelly of the ship. Bruce let her get a turn ahead of him and advance further beyond that. She probably had something in mind, so it was just as well he let her go ahead and get it set up.

His heart rate evened out, and Bruce stopped to put away his glasses and take off his jacket before starting back up to a jog again. He watched his footing as the trail wound deeper into the woods and became rougher as it climbed and dipped. He was beginning to suspect he should have asked for a map or at least found out how far she planned on hiking. Soon there was a downhill stretch, and he could hear running water, which turned out to be a stream that began to run parallel to the path on his right. The trees began to thin out and after a few more minutes he could see there was an open area ahead. That's when he heard Natasha shout his name. He yelled back, "Here!" and put his head down to run in earnest. He knew she had to have at least one firearm on her, so he was becoming quite concerned about what could have made her yell for him. He didn't want to bring out the Hulk unless it was absolutely necessary. As he broke into the clearing, he could see her about 30 yards away, staring at the ground in front of her with a look of consternation on her face. Unfortunately, the grass was too tall for him to see what was provoking her ire. He was glad it wasn't a bear and hoped it wasn't a poisonous snake.

"Are you okay?" he called as he kept jogging toward her.

"What the hell is this thing?" she asked.

Bruce did his best to keep a straight face as he arrived at her side. "It's a woodchuck or groundhog," he said, "and it's looking pretty pissed off."

The large golden brown rodent was about two feet long and built low and flat like a badger. Rather than growling, it was clicking curses at her and showing its two sharp beaver-like front teeth. Of course it was between Natasha and the blue and green blanket spread out with the canvas bag and her jacket that probably had her firearm and the keys to the house.

"Here," he said, handing her his jacket. "Smack it with this or kick it if it gets too close. I'm going to circle around on the far side and grab our stuff." He was relieved when she didn't argue. "If it comes after me, of course, you get to grab the stuff."

"Got it," she said with her own low growl, obviously taking the situation personally.

"Okay, make some noise," he said as he brought his wide ellipse back toward the far side of the blanket. Nat waved her arms and yelled at the groundhog, which was now sort of hissing its warning as it reared up on its hind legs to keep her from coming closer.

"Come at me you giant chipmunk!" she spat.

Bruce managed to grab the near edge of the blanket before the angry rodent decided he needed some scolding, too. Bruce managed to jerk the blanket hard enough to roll everything up and get his arms around it. Natasha charged forward yelling at the groundhog in a couple of different languages.

Bruce kept running for about fifty yards just to make sure it wasn't going to chase him. Nat had circled around and soon joined him at the far side of the meadow. They both were out of breath and laughing.

"If there are rats in hell, that is one of them," she said.

"Definitely an ROUS," he said.

"A what?"

"A Rodent of Unusual Size. It's from _The Princess Bride_ ," he explained. "If you've not seen it, we're having a movie night ASAP. I can't believe we've not watched it together yet."

"Please tell me there aren't more than one of these things," she complained.

"You probably put the blanket down near its burrow or on something it wanted to eat. They're trying to put on weight for the winter about now. I'm not going to go ask him which it is. I also don't want to ask him if he found anything unless the keys are missing. Please tell me you've got the keys."

"She pulled her jacket out of his bundled up blanket and showed him the key, which she now slid into her jeans' front pocket with the car keys. He didn't bother to ask about the gun because he didn't want to know, and she wouldn't tell him anyway. He raised an eyebrow, "I hope everything else is okay and accounted for."

Natasha just smiled at him in her calm, saintly way.

"All right, how much further do you want to go?" he asked, looking across the meadow.

She grinned at him quite wickedly, "Why, Doc, all the way of course."

He threw his head back and laughed, "And you say I have a one-track mind, Ms. Romanoff." He stepped closer and gave her a peck on the cheek, "You know what I meant."

"Let's go to the far side where the trail continues on into the woods," Natasha said. Bruce followed her through the grass till they reached a spot that was level and dry enough for them to spread the blanket out again. The day was warm, especially for the end of October, so they laid their jackets to the side and pulled off their boots before sitting down on the blanket. Natasha handed Bruce a bottle of water, and they both sipped away as they looked at the woods and watched and listened to the birds and insects flying above the meadow's grasses. There were even a few late flowering plants with bees still droning around them. The two leaned against each other's shoulders as the clouds' shadows chased each other across the treetops and the meadow as well.

"So, how many satellites and other 'things' are watching us right now?" he asked.

"None that can see us. We're in a blind spot, thanks to Phil and the techs," she said, watching the dragonflies flit and skim across the tops of the grass.

"Really? If I do this," he said as he reached across with his left hand to cup her face, "no one would see me kiss you?" He looked into her green eyes and waited for her answer.

"Not a single person," she said, and she leaned forward to meet his lips with hers as they closed their eyes. She loved the way he always committed himself when he kissed her. Maybe it was part of having to deny himself for so long or that he could concentrate and focus all that brainpower on one physical and emotional act. Natasha wasn't sure, but he was good and he was always in the moment and paying attention to her reactions and ready to take subtle direction. Right now she wanted him to take it slow and feel his lips and his breath on her skin. Bruce made it a negotiation by nibbling lightly before kissing her on the lips more deeply. Natasha teased him a bit, biting his lower lip and then kissing his face and throat. She offered up her neck as she ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him to her. Bruce turned his body to encircle her with his legs and arms and lean in closer to take in her perfume and nuzzle his face against hers. He planted light kisses up the left side of her neck and nibbled at her ear from the lobe to the curved rim. She ran her hands up under his pullover shirt and felt his abs, ribs, and chest. "You are my furry bear, come running out of the woods to save me," she teased, feathering her fingers through his chest hair.

Bruce snorted, "I don't think you needed much saving, not from a two-foot long rodent that liked to trash talk."

"It was pretty aggressive, and it did have my gun," she chuckled, and reached around him to pull his shirt off over his head. As he stretched and bared his chest, she leaned in to lick his left nipple and he groaned. She moved to his right and sucked.

"Oh, Nat," he said, "don't stop." She rubbed both nipples between her thumbs and forefingers—not too hard but enough to make it ride the line between pleasure and pain as he rolled his eyes and squirmed. He tilted his head back again and moaned with pleasure.

"Lay back," she said, and Bruce complied, shifting to get comfortable on the green and blue quilt. She straddled his hips and leaned forward to weave her fingers with his and pin them to ground beside his head. "I'm going to mark you," Natasha purred. She watched his eyes as the pupils dilated with excitement and he smiled eagerly. "Now, where should I start?" He offered up his throat to her. "Too obvious," she said and straightened out his right arm. She started at the crook of his elbow above the pulse points and sucked hard to leave a blooming rosette of a fresh bruise before she did the same thing on his left arm. Bruce was breathing deeply, keeping himself in check, but his dark eyes followed her. "Stay still," Natasha told him after she finished his second mark. She leaned back on her heels and unbuttoned her long-sleeve shirt to reveal a new black and red lace bra.

Bruce smiled in appreciation, rather surprised that she'd sneaked that one past him. Now he really wanted to see if she had on a matching set of panties. "May I?" he asked, indicating her jeans.

"Yes, you may, Lover," she said as she shrugged out of her shirt and tossed it beside his on the blanket's edge. She leaned back forward onto her knees, so Bruce could unfasten and unzip them. Natasha watched him and his obvious delight at finding her wearing a set. He tugged her jeans down a bit so he could see the lingerie better, and he reached around her to cup her ass cheeks with his strong hands.

"I want to see you without the jeans on," he said huskily.

She smiled and stood up, slowly pulling her pants the rest of the way off as he watched. "Now, I'm going to get cold," she teased with a pout.

Bruce had rolled over on his side to have a clear view of her. "You always have an open invitation to lay on me," he said. "Or I could lay on you if you prefer," he added with a wink.

"You're a regular blanket now, huh?" Natasha lay back down beside him, and Bruce wrapped his left arm around her. He rubbed her arms and back, and she tucked into his neck, snuggling with him. Bruce slipped his hand down her front and massaged her mound through her panties. "More?" he asked as she pushed her hips against his hand, grinding into him.

"Yes, please, let's get naked," she said. "I want to feel your cock inside me, Bruce."

"So now my girl is in a hurry?" he asked, and he rolled her gently onto her back.

Natasha reached down and grabbed his waistband as he put his weight on his right elbow and knee. She unbuckled his belt and slipped her right hand along the treasure trail down the front of his jeans. "Oh, dear, someone has forgotten to put on his undies," she giggled.

"You're not the only one to have a surprise down her pants today," he said with a leer as he waggled his eyebrows.

She laughed at him and unfastened and unzipped his jeans. He sat up and tugged them off. "Sorry, there's just no graceful way to do this," he apologized as he fished a condom and applicator out of his pocket before tossing the jeans on the pile with the rest of their clothes.

"You don't have to be graceful to be sexy, you dork," she smirked at him and pulled him close for a kiss. "Besides, you look so much better in clothes that fit than in oversized stuff that falls off your butt. Not that I mind you being unclothed or anything." Bruce was sitting there next to her naked and gorgeous in the sunshine and a little too flustered to respond. Although not so obvious as hers, she noticed his freckles stood out more in the sun. The remaining strands of gray in his dark curls caught the light, but they looked like highlights framing his handsome features. She'd walked him downstairs to the hair stylist at the tower a few days before, so his curls looked as tamed as they ever did. Natasha thought she could never get enough of looking at him or being near him.

Bruce had noticed her studying him and he'd started to blush. Since he didn't have his glasses to keep his hands busy, he was playing with the condom package and the anti-radiation foam applicator. "Okay, Love, give it here," Natasha finally said as she stretched out again on the quilted blanket.

Bruce handed her the condom and kept the applicator as he leaned forward over her. He bent down to kiss her stomach with its soft skin and faded scars over firm muscles. He started with light feathery kisses that became sloppier as he worked his way down. Bruce playfully gnawed at her panties, pulling the waistband up with his teeth and letting it snap with a naughty look back up at her smirk before helping her wiggle out of them. He deeply inhaled from the black and red lingerie before dropping them on the clothing pile while she smiled at him. Parting her legs, Bruce stroked her inner thighs. He paused a moment to study her as she sprawled on the blanket, enjoying his attentions. The wind tossed the grass, and he could hear it in the nearby treetops as well. Natasha had drawn her knees up, and he rested his head on one of them. "I love you," he said, sounding quite serious all of the sudden.

"The feeling is mutual, Bruce. I love you, too," she said languidly. At that moment he'd have done anything in his power to make her happy.

"Are you ready?" he asked as he unwrapped and assembled the applicator. He set it aside a moment and spread her legs. He'd been going to skip right to intercourse since she'd been excited, but he found himself wanting to eat her out first. Bruce kissed down one pale freckled thigh and then the other as Natasha moaned with pleasure. "Turn over," he said and grabbed his jacket from the clothing pile and folded it up to give Nat a little more padding between her front and the ground. He directed her to keep her beautiful fair ass in the air as he parted her cheeks and labia from this new angle. He used his lips and tongue following her folds to her clit.

Natasha writhed and arched her back as he kissed and explored. "Yes, yes," she moaned as he found new ways to teaser her along. He slowly inserted a finger which made her buck, "Enough teasing, Bruce, I need you to fuck me," she demanded.

"Yes, mam!" he said with a chuckle. Bruce had hardened up quite sufficiently, so he used the vaginal foam on Natasha, which nearly set her off, but the condom package had gotten misplaced. He looked around desperately, "Did you have the condom, Nat?"

She finally located it under the jacket and handed it back to him. "Hurry, Bruce, I need you," she said as she repositioned herself back on her elbows.

Bruce ripped the package open and unrolled the prophylactic over his now throbbing erection. He situated himself behind her on his knees (oh, they'd both be paying for the knee part tomorrow). This wasn't a position they used very often, but if this was what she wanted, he intended to please her to the best of his abilities. Natasha took a sharp breath as he gently lined himself up and she reached back underneath to guide him into her. Bruce groaned with pleasure as his shaft filled her, and he pulled her hips close. He'd rather be watching her beautiful face, but he couldn't deny the novelty of the angle was stimulating for both of them. "Good?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, Bruce," she said in a husky voice as she leaned back into him and buried her face in his jacket, inhaling the smell of leather and his warm, delicious aroma as she braced her weight on her forearms. Bruce flexed his glutes and his core muscles pushing in and out of her as he held her hips steady while the purring growl began again deep down inside him. Their thighs moved together, and he stroked his hands over her ribs and down her flanks. He couldn't help but count the scars as he touched them and thought of some of their origins that she'd shared, but he didn't want to distract himself. He and Natasha had been bed partners long enough now to know each other's rhythms and quirks, so he knew how much she liked him to pound into her hard and fast. "So good," she moaned as their thighs and glutes smacked together. He leaned forward and reached around her hips to rub her mons before slipping in and fingering her clitoris. "Oh! Oh, I'm coming! I'm coming!" she sobbed.

"Come for me. Come as hard and loud as you want, my sweet Natasha. I've got you," he encouraged her. Bruce felt her vaginal muscles contract around his shaft. He bit his lower lip, concentrating hard, and he thrust once, twice more before reaching the tipping point of his own orgasm. Nothing earth shattering today, but the release felt good and satisfying. "Oh, God, Nat," he groaned and hugged her to him as he kissed down her beautiful alabaster back. They both breathed hard as they caught their breaths. After a bit, he straightened back up and slowly withdrew from her. He leaned back on his heels and removed and tied off the well-used condom before he deposited it in the applicator's box. He'd put them both in the Biohazard Container in the car when they returned.

In the meantime, Natasha was spent, so she flopped over and rolled on her back exhaustedly, and he lay down beside her, propping himself up on his right elbow and hugging her with his left arm. "Where have you been all my life, Bruce?" she asked him, soothing the dark curls back from his forehead and touching the remaining bits of silver near his temples.

He knew she meant the remark as a compliment, but he didn't want to dwell too much on the might-have-beens. It just wasn't productive. He reached over and took her left hand in his and kissed it. "I was waiting for you to come find me, Nat. I just didn't know it would be in Kolkata with two dozen chaperones," he told her with an amused smile.

Shaking her head ruefully, Natasha leaned over and kissed him. His lips still tasted a bit like her, and she kept on kissing him and breathing in his essence. She would have soaked his sweet caramel smell into her pores if she could have. She felt so sated and happy laying there with Bruce naked in the meadow on a borrowed blanket, hiding from the world for a few hours.

Bruce watched her finally relax, and he threw his shirt over her fair skin to make sure she didn't burn. He settled back down with her but set his watch to wake them in an hour if he drifted off, too. He studied her face and touched her lovely russet red hair. Bruce wasn't sure exactly when it had happened, but at some point, the future only seemed right when it included them together in it. Where had he been all her life? It didn't matter. They were both here together from now on, so that's what really counted.

 **End Notes:** There is a second half to this little episode on the farm in my head, but I'll make no promises. If you want to influence me, comment and review!


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary:** Still in Natasha's October flashback at the Barton Farm. Nat and Adam have work to do. Nat and Bruce do other things. Still earning that mature rating.

 **Notes:** Many thanks as always to Autumn_Froste whose expertise is way beyond normal expectations.

Chapter 48: Mud, Meadows, and Monsters

Natasha awoke to find Bruce smiling at her. She yawned and sat up to stretched. "How long was I out?" she asked him.

He patted her shoulder. "Only about 30 minutes," he said as he sat up and stretched as well. He placed his right arm behind his head with his elbow in air and gently pulled with the left hand before doing the same with the opposite side. "We've still got about three hours before Laura and the kids are back."

"Well, I have an idea if you're feeling up to it," she offered.

"I'm feeling okay. What do you have in mind?" he asked curiously.

"You could let the Big Guy out to play," she said quite seriously. "We're as off the grid as we're going to get here. The kids aren't around for you to worry about. This is as nice and peaceful as it gets. Maggie says the more face time you can give him, the better you'll both do overall."

Bruce chewed at the inside of his lips for a moment before he nodded. "Okay, that's not a bad idea. He's going to be buck naked since the uniform pants are in the luggage, but that shouldn't bother him too much," Bruce noted with a bemused smile. "How do you want to do this?" he asked while he took off his watch and dropped it into his boot.

Natasha slipped her underwear and jeans back on. "Lay down," she said, and positioned herself by his head. Natasha gently massaged his temples with her fingertips. The more relaxed he was, the easier the transition would be. Physical pain would always be involved when he transitioned, and there wasn't much they could do about that, but the mental pain could be alleviated if not eliminated by working with the process and not resisting. "Let loose when you're ready," Natasha said and kissed his forehead.

Bruce smiled and tilted his head to make eye contact, "I love you, Nat. See you on the other side." He closed his eyes, and in his mind he reached out. Hulk had been quiet for most of the day, so Bruce wasn't sure how hard he'd be to find. Bruce used to image a generic house that was just a room where he'd open the door and sometimes windows and call, but things had rapidly become more detailed since the summer. Now he was the one standing outside the house in Dayton. He was in the backyard like a friend would have been calling for . . . "Hu . . ." He'd thought about calling, "Hulk," but that didn't seem right. "Uh, uh, Adam?!"

"Bruce!" came an excited cry from inside. The porch door flew open and a dark-headed boy took the steps two at a time and nearly knocked Bruce over as he grabbed him around the waist. As soon as they touched, a small shock like static passed between them, and Bruce knew who Adam was and embraced him. "What are you doing here?" the boy asked. "It's daylight still, and you're not in deep sleep. It's not an emergency or I would know it by the adrenaline spike. Are we having an unscheduled therapy session?"

"Nat and I thought you might enjoy some time outside since we're spending a few days at the Bartons' Farm. Natasha was showing me part of the back acreage," Bruce explained. "Would you like to go check it out? Just Natasha is there, and it's nice and quiet."

Adam grinned broadly, "You don't need to ask me twice. Thank you!"

"You're welcome. Have fun, Adam, and keep Natasha out of trouble." Bruce closed his eyes and thought about relaxing into the warmth of the process, which helped until the physical ripping and expanding took over. That's when Bruce sensed Adam steadying him and then enfolding Bruce to shield him from the pain. Bruce was grateful and wondered what he could give in return. He offered himself up for Adam to take what he needed.

"I want to speak," Adam whispered. "Please help me think and speak. I know I look like a monster, but please help me not to act like one."

"I'll do my best," Bruce told him.

((o))

Natasha studied Bruce's face, searching for signs of what was happening inside. Was it that hard to find the Big Guy or had something gone wrong? Without FRIDAY there to scan and limited help from her normal equipment, she was left with her observational skills. He seemed to be breathing fine and his temperature was steady. She was tempted to shake him, but she held herself back. For once, she was relieved when the first sign of green started to show in the arteries in his neck. Natasha backed up a few feet and continued to watch him as he worked to keep his breathing even. She couldn't help but think of the first horrific time she'd seen Bruce fight that losing battle to keep from transforming. His struggle, the pain, and the violence of it were etched deeply in her memory, but what was happening to him now seemed like a very different process, even if they accomplished almost the same end. Although Natasha wasn't sure if Bruce would agree, she was often reminded of two different extremes of birthing experiences: one organic and natural while the other was full of panic and fear. She'd noticed that the slower he/they took things, the less spasmodic writhing and thrashing he seemed to do. Natasha guessed that a lot of it came from his spinal column and the long bones needing to expand, but it always looked like it tore him apart on the physical if not the mental level as well.

Natasha made a point of standing back as Bruce rolled away from her onto his side and briefly drew up into a fetal position as his frame expanded and his mass doubled. His shoulders expanded and the muscles swelled and defined under the deepening greens of his skin. He straightened out his spine then threw his head back with a groan. His voice had dropped octaves so it sounded like a growl, but she was certain he'd said, "Oh, God." His back was to her when he sat up, scrubbed at his face with his hands, and shook his head, obviously trying to clear some cobwebs.

"Are you okay?" Natasha asked before approaching him.

"Sorry, tried different . . . thing . . . head's muddled," he said as he rubbed his temples with his large hands. Slowly, he turned to look at her. "Hi, 'Tasha," he said with his familiar lopsided smile.

"I missed you, Big Guy," she replied fondly and took a step closer. He held up his hand so she could touch his palm. Natasha touched her hand to his, giving him her permission to move if he chose. "May I?" she asked, opening her arms to him, which was also a protocol they had worked out with the therapy team. It was a request for permission to casually touch and shorthand for agreeing they both would be respectful and careful with their contact.

"Yes," he said, opening his arms to her, which also gave her permission to be in his personal space as she had given her permission to him. He was seated cross-legged, so she stepped into the hollow space between his right thigh and arm. She touched the side of his face with her right hand, and he closed his eyes and leaned into it for a moment. She noted he felt just as warm as Bruce, but there was an earthier smell about him like crushed sage with a newly sliced tart apple and a slightly bitter undertone that could only be the Gamma.

"So the two of you are working together today?" she asked.

He nodded, "Yes, together . . . learning . . . process." There was more he wanted to say, but it wouldn't come. Adam stared at his left hand and flexed it in frustration. He wanted to talk to her like he talked to Bruce. In his natural incorporeal state, he had no trouble finding words and expressing himself; in fact, he probably was a little too unfiltered and had quite the opposite problem as when he was Hulk. At the moment he was disappointed because, even with the boost and the buffering he was getting from his alter ego, he was having trouble concentrating and articulating his thoughts. He was getting some of the vocabulary, but he was painfully aware basic words and any sense of nuance were missing. Adam wasn't a stickler for grammar, but it would be nice to have some control over pronouns, articles, and prepositions. He looked up at Natasha again and focused, "I . . . feel . . . stupid . . . can't find words I want. I sound dumb."

Natasha stroked the side of his face. "I know you're frustrated. You and Bruce both like predictability, and your language skills are not consistent enough to be predictable. I know you're as intelligent as Bruce. I have never doubted that since we've been on good terms. We just have to figure out a way to work around the frustrating parts." She pulled his massive head closer and he carefully leaned into her embrace. "Something I've noticed is that it takes you a bit to recover from the transition before you're languages skills get up to speed. Short of doing a bunch of brain scans, I think what's happening is you're essentially recovering from a traumatic brain injury every time you transition. The longer you're Hulk, the more you're going to recover your skills, at least up to a certain point."

Adam straightened up and looked at Natasha, considering her theory. He covered his mouth and jaw with his left hand before stroking his chin. "You make sense. My skull was too . . . dense . . . to scan last summer. There was no . . . no scar tissue in Bruce's scan."

"You're right. I didn't get to look at the data very much before it was sealed away, but I think you're right," she said.

"Pluri . . . Pluripotent cells?" he asked, looking her in the eye again with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," she said nodding, "they might explain your resilience and the lack of scar tissue. We'll have to bring the topic up with Bruce because this is so far outside my areas of expertise, I hardly speak the same language."

Adam smiled at that, "Tomorrow's mystery?"

Natasha nodded and laughed, "Well, that leaves today for other things then. We can just keep talking or Clint came up with some things we could do to help him out. He, of course, thinks you're a bulldozer because of you working on the landscape design plans in Johannesburg, but if you don't want to do these, we can find something else."

Adam rolled his eyes, "Tell me about chores."

"Well, since we are sans clothing, the creek further down has some sand bars that he'd like to get a load of sand collected from and moved. The old truck is already supposed to be down there, so it's a pretty simple but dirty job to load it. The other chore is pulling up stumps, but we may want to wait for Clint to do that."

"Sand it is. Take or leave things here?" he asked.

"Good question," Natasha said as she debated their rout. "Let me put the rest of my clothes back on, and we'll pack up Bruce's stuff and the blanket." She soon had herself situated and Adam scooped up the rest once it was packed up.

She'd slipped Bruce's glasses into her jacket pocket and the Big Guy had smirked. "Toys," he said as they started walking across the meadow toward the part of the trail that paralleled the creek.

"No, they're really prescription glasses. I checked," she explained.

"No, Bruce toys with them. He doesn't need them," Adam said with a mischievous look in his brown eyes.

"You've noticed that too. I've not said anything, but he forgets them for days at a time," she noted.

"Wire and glass security blanket. Won't lie about surgery, but he pretends to need them," Adam said and rolled his eyes. "Both are not true, so which is worse?" Clearly, it was a point of disagreement between the two.

"We all have our foibles. I was going to say that at least he's wearing socks and underwear now, but he left off the boxers today," she smirked.

Hulk chuckled, "Bruce hates tags."

"That is true, but to be honest, I think he just meant to surprise me," she said and watched to see his response.

"Yes, he wants to please you. He worries. Thinks he's getting old. Worries too much about what he can't change," Adam sighed and then looked at her with an eyebrow cocked. "You and I, we're both . . . prag, pragmatists. We get jobs done."

Natasha nodded, thinking through what he'd said. "But we're not really getting old are we? Not like everyone else with maybe the exception of Steve. We don't need to worry about that."

He nodded, "Not on my worry list." They had reached the tree line, so he gestured for her to go first since he would have to do some ducking and dodging under the lower limbs.

"What things do you worry about?" she asked.

That seemed to take him aback for a minute. "I worry about Bruce. I worry about you. I worry about Tony more. I worry a lot about hurting people. I worry about someone controlling this body. I worry about being locked up." He went a few steps off the trail to avoid an evergreen. "It's not rational, but I worry about Bruce forgetting me. That's the worst thing I can think of short of someone dying or Ross getting ahold of Bruce and me being unable to help. How about you? What do you worry about, 'Tasha?"

"I knew you were going to ask that. The same things you worry about. Teammates and friends. I worry about being numb and not feeling things that I should. The unknown. Things that aren't predictable. Something I can't understand or control. People dying and it being my fault."

"I'm not the control freak you and Bruce are, but I get that," Adam said.

"Oh, come on. You worry about staying in control as much as we do. Don't deny you have an ego."

"I do like to stay in control, but I don't worry about controlling everything—just me. I have a temper, but I don't run on 'angry' all the time—not when I'm in my right mind at least. I know how to play nice when need to," he said with a wink, "but I certainly don't have to do that if I don't want."

"Are you playing 'nice' with me?" she asked with a chuckle.

"Always," he said. "I'd hate to see the mess if we didn't both play nice with each other. I know when I've met my match."

Natasha gave him a hit in the arm, and he pretended to rub his arm in pain. She noted he was definitely up to speed with speech. If she could keep him talking through that initial phase, that seemed to be the key. They continued on in amicable silence for a while until the trees thinned and the creek widened out. They soon came to a place where an access road crossed at a rocky shoal. "The sandy part is just downstream," she said. There was a bend in the creek to the left and then the sand bars beyond it to the inside of the curve. There was an ancient dump truck parked on the right bank. Natasha climbed up and took a look in the cab to locate the keys under the mat.

In the back bed was a sizable clawed scoop, which had likely come from a backhoe. Adam gave a deep rumbling laugh. "I may not be a bulldozer today, so why not be a backhoe?"

Natasha deadpanned, "When you can't be Batman, be Backhoe."

He rolled his eyes, "Batman my emerald ass. You can be Batman. I'll be Superman or Wonder Woman." He picked up the scoop. It did fit nicely to his hands, so he didn't complain further. The right tool for the right job, he'd heard Clint paraphrase that more than once.

"I'm not sure why Clint left the truck on this side," Natasha wondered, "so I'm going to go back to the crossing and meet on the other side." She stowed their things in the passenger's seat and started the engine up. Adam nodded and easily jumped the thirty-foot span across the creek to the inner bank with the scoop in hand. She rolled the cab window down, "Showoff!"

He smiled and waved as she put the truck in gear and headed slowly back up the track. Adam stepped into the cool water and waded to the biggest sand bar and tested the scoop. The sand was good and wet but nothing the makeshift tool wouldn't handle. He reasoned that if he made a pile on the bank first, it would drain a bit and not tax the dump truck too much, so he started in dredging on the right and piling on the left. He soon discovered the wet sand had some flow to it, so he ended up piling it at a more level spot. By the time Natasha drove up, he had about a quarter load in a pile. He was trying to be picky and only scoop up the cleanest sand without rocks and debris, so he was going slower than he might have. "So what is Clint going to use this for," he asked as she got down from the cab.

"Good question," she said. "I don't think it's for a volleyball pit, but he's such a Bob the Builder it's hard to tell. You never know with him."

"I'm trying to be careful, but he's going to need to sift it unless it's just going on a path or something," Adam noted. He kept dredging and piling, dredging and piling till he judged there was enough sand for a full load. "Well, how much more?" he asked her.

"I think you're pretty close," Natasha replied. "Do want me to move it any closer or tilt the bed?"

"No, that's perfect," Adam said and started scooping it into the bed. Natasha watched him from the side. His movements were fluid and precise without a bit of awkwardness. She watched his well-defined back and leg muscles flex and release. No one would ever mistake him for an Adonis, but she appreciated his strength and control on display here. He didn't waste motion: he just kept going until he was finished. He looked up and realized she'd been watching him. He smiled a little self-consciously and turned away to place the scoop securely behind the cab, but she could see the blush, even underneath the green. She turned away, realizing she'd probably made him uncomfortable. In her head, Natasha knew he wasn't Bruce, but sometimes it was hard to know where one stopped and the other started, especially when she loved them both, even if it was in different ways.

Adam walked around the truck looking at the wheels. "I think I know why Clint had this on the other bank," he said and pointed at the wheels, which had sunk several inches into the soft dirt of the path nearest the water. "I think the ground is soggier here, so be careful as you pull out."

"I see what you mean. Stay to the side so you don't get sprayed with mud," she recommended. Natasha jumped back in the cab and started the engine up again. She eased it into first gear and the machine lurched forward and started to dig into the soft soil and turf. Adam grabbed the bumper and stayed to the side as the dirt flew out behind the rear wheels. He lifted and pushed and the truck found enough traction to move forward. He let go when it seemed to have reached solid ground only for it to fish tale and splatter him thoroughly with the muck. He spat some grit out and caught up with the truck in time to steady it as the track sloped upward onto dryer ground.

Once they were on solid ground with some gravel under them, Natasha stopped the truck and shook her head as she looked at him. "Sorry, I did not mean to do that."

"Not a problem," Adam said as he scraped a handful of mud off his chest and splattered it on the ground. "Reminds me of finger paint and mud pies."

"Do you want to go wash some of it off in the creek?" she asked.

"No, let's keep going. Clint has a power washer, right?"

"Yah, but do you want to use that on yourself?"

"Shouldn't be a problem. I'm not all that sensitive," he explained.

"Want to ride?"

"No, I want to make sure you don't need pushed again not guarantee you get stuck or break an axle," he joked.

"Suit yourself," she said as she put the truck into gear. Adam paced along behind the truck, staying far enough back not to have to eat more dirt as loose chunks of it flew. She shifted into second gear once the road straightened out. He would have enjoyed talking to Natasha more, but he knew his emotions were starting to get confused again. That seemed to happen the longer they spent time together. Some of it just had to do with being in sync with Bruce, but he knew he cared for her, cared deeply for her in fact, he just wasn't sure in what way. He'd talked it through with Bruce and they'd put some distance between he and Nat, but eventually he'd had to face working with her and he'd coped. An hour or so wasn't a problem, but more than that seemed to be when his resolve began to waver and the doubts crept in as it became difficult to parse whose feelings were bubbling to the surface.

He was relieved when the gravel road met a single-lane paved road, which he recognized from the map. If he didn't have to limit his altitude, he would have been able to make it back to the Bartons' Farm in one leap. Natasha shifted the truck into third gear and it topped out at almost twenty miles per hour. He jogged up beside the cab and she shouted, "Race you!"

He laughed at that and shook his head. "No, I'd tear up the road. I don't want the chore list to include replacing that." Luckily, they were able to turn down the road to the farm without meeting anyone, so their hosts wouldn't be hearing any stories about a naked green sasquatch chasing their dump truck down the road. Natasha pulled the old vehicle into the yard beside their car and parked it, making sure the emergency brake was secure. They walked to the far side of the barn, and she unrolled the hose to the power washer, which was attached to an overhead swivel arm like an old fashion carwash, which was probably where this one originated. "Just soap or do you want some degreaser and a wax, too?" Natasha joked as she turned on the water.

"Just water. I think there's enough grit left to exfoliate," he joked as he picked at some of the dried mud in his matted chest hair and sighed as he looked further down his body. "Sometimes I wish Bruce wasn't this hairy."

"Don't say that. I am in love with that body hair," Natasha said as she turned the hose on low and hit him in the chest with the stream.

Adam shielded his eyes from the spray. "Really, I didn't realize that," he said over the noise of the water. "I thought you liked it when he shaved?"

"Hold your arms up and turn around," she instructed him. "I like Bruce to shave his face, not the rest of him," explained Natasha.

"Oh," Adam said, looking rather perplexed as he scrubbed at the patches of grime with his hands and shook his head. "Hey, careful around the crotch. Why would you want him to shave his face if you like the body hair?"

Natasha thought Hulk looked about as cleaned off as she could get him, so Bruce would have to take it from there. She turned off the hose and looped it back up on the holding hook before killing the water source. "Okay, Big Guy, let me show you," she said with a smirk. Natasha reached up and pulled Adam's face down to hers and rubbed her cheeks against his still-wet lips and face.

Adam jerked his head back out of her reach. The whites of his eyes were showing with alarm as he stepped back.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Sorry, I didn't think I'd surprise you that much."

"Fine," he said, but he was breathing rapidly and his pulse was pounding. He wanted to run. He wanted to be anywhere but there in front of her at the moment. "If you could get my pants out of the luggage, I'll go take care of the stumps. They're down at the end of the field. I saw them when we came up the road."

Realizing she'd made a misstep, Natasha pitched her voice as low and soothing as she could, "Hey, don't worry about those now. They'll wait till tomorrow. I'm really sorry. I can see I upset you."

He stared at his feet and watched the water drip off of him and soak into the gravel. He flexed his hands and counted to ten. He thought he understood why Bruce wanted to keep his glasses now.

"Please, let's talk about this. You have your words and your mind seems clear, but it might not be so good if we wait for the next time." She took a few tentative steps forward and touched his right forearm. "Please, we can sit on the porch and talk."

"What if I say, No?" "Then I'll persuade you." "What if the other guy says No?" echoed through his mind. He didn't remember much about Kolkata, but he did remember that conversation. "I'll probably break the porch," he said with a resigned sigh.

"Clint reinforced it with concrete under the wood for the safe room. You're not going to hurt it by sitting on it."

Adam had to smile at that. Natasha retrieved their things from the cab of the truck and replaced the key beneath the mat before they walked down the short path to the house. Adam sat down very gingerly at the top of the steps. "May I?" Natasha asked with her arms open.

He finally looked at her. "Yes," he said and he opened his arms, but he closed his eyes.

"You're not comfortable with me being this close are you?"

"It's not that simple," Adam said as he put his arms down and wrapped them around his knees. "From the outside it looks pretty obvious who I am. But on the inside, it's not so clear. I know the body looks like it's mine, but it's not. It still belongs to Bruce. I just have temporary custody. What's inside is not all me. I don't know where Bruce ends and I begin. I don't know if my feelings are his or mine. But, no matter whose feelings they are, I can't act on them, 'Tasha."

Natasha wasn't sure what she should say. Her natural inclination was to reach out and offer comfort, but she didn't want to push him. "I had no idea. I'm sorry. What can I do to make this better for you?"

"Just give me some warning before you touch me. It doesn't bother me if I know your intentions," Adam explained.

"I can do that, but I need you to tell me 'No' if you're not comfortable," she said. She let that sink in for a bit as he thought.

"That's a deal I can live with," he finally replied with a nod and a small smile. He ran a hand through his hair and found it was almost dry.

"I'd like to ask you something if it's okay."

"Go ahead," he said and rubbed his temple with his right hand.

"Are you able to talk about any of this with Bruce?"

"Yah, when we're both in his head, but there's not much he can do about this either. When he gives me his support, it's not just connected to intellect or intelligence, it's the whole package, so I have his emotions, what he feels and desires on top of everything. We've not found a way to filter or organize anything, so it all mixes together. Parts of it are very confusing for me, especially when Bruce has really strong emotional responses to something."

At that moment, Natasha understood exactly what he meant. If she looked back into her own past, there were whole sets of memories, some of them happy and comforting, others disturbing, that she doubted belonged to her. She was afraid if she started examining and chipping at any of them, everything she knew about herself would crumble. How did you even begin to separate what was real or your own when all of it engulfed you? They both were drowning in memories or feelings they knew weren't their own. "I understand," she said. "I don't know how to make it stop or how to untangle such things, but I've felt just as lost and overwhelmed when I look back to my past. I know parts aren't real. I'm afraid if I dig too far I won't have a history."

They looked at each other, both of them recognizing the other's distress. Adam opened his arms to her. "May I?" he asked.

"Yes," she said and opened hers to him. She stepped closer to him and into his surprisingly gentle embrace. "May I touch you?" she asked.

"Please do," he responded, and she reached around his neck and touched her face to his. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the moment of emotional and physical connection as her skin touched his. He inhaled the heady complexity of her scents from the bit of axle grease and mink oil on her boots to the floral perfume over the light musk and citrus of her own smell. "I think I get why Bruce shaves now," he told her with a chuckle.

She leaned back, looked him in the eye, and shook her head. "It helps, especially if you have a lot of contact, okay? Otherwise, your scruff feels like sandpaper."

He touched his face and rubbed along his jaw, "Got it. I wondered about that."

"Haven't you had a beard before? I'm sure Bruce has grown one for a disguise or when you've lived up north. God knows he'd go without shaving if I didn't object so much."

"I'm sure he has, but I really don't remember much except for the one last summer. The only times he let me out back before then was by accident or for an emergency, so I wasn't paying much attention to facial hair."

"Guess not," she said with a shrug and a grin. "Got to have the right priorities."

Adam looked up at the sun, "I hate to say this, but it's probably getting late enough for me to say good-bye. It's been really nice to talk to you again with most of my mind intact."

"I've enjoyed spending time with you. I always do, and I know Clint will appreciate your hard work," she told him. "I still have your back, Big Guy."

"And I have yours, too," Adam told her.

Natasha backed away from the steps to give him some room. He didn't need her help to transition, but he held his hand out and she traced the pulse points down from his inner elbow to his wrist and his hand. It sent a little shock through him, and he felt his connections to the world loosening. He closed his eyes as the rushing of blood and creaking of bone signaled the compression process was underway. Bruce's presence encircled him as if to check and make sure he was settled before he left to go run the show.

Adam was vaguely aware that he was sitting on a couch, but as he rubbed and then opened his eyes it wasn't the couch back in the apartment. It took him a moment to place it, but this had to be the Barton's house. He jumped up and wandered around the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Bruce's memories told him the place was too quiet, of course, because there was normally something noisy going on involving the kids, but there was also something here that was different from Adam's work, which he couldn't put his finger on.

Adam smiled and admired how well Bruce had done with the proportions and scale. He'd only seen the house's interior through Bruce's eyes, but Adam though this looked dead on. He was especially excited because he was normally the one who made places for Bruce, not the other way around. The idea that Bruce had put this much thought and effort into a space that Adam couldn't have done himself was like the cherry on top. That's it: the place smelled like . . . cake! Adam stood in the middle of kitchen and inhaled. Vanilla! Definitely vanilla. When he closed his eyes, it was yellow gold and soft and warm like sunlight on a windowsill. Somehow, he knew if he stood in the living room he would smell popcorn. He made himself take his time because there was time, plenty of time, and he didn't want to get sensory overload. When he walked out the front door, the porch and the yard and beyond was there, too. It all looked so large now compared to just a few minutes before, so he walked back into the house and found the note on the kitchen counter.

 _I didn't get to the upstairs, but I thought you'd enjoy this. Hope it's not too rough of a job, but I'm sure you'll be able to fix it. –B._

Wow, Bruce's first effort and he'd done it for him. As he walked out the front door again and stood on the porch, he thought that after a while he would go exploring outside, but for now he might have to go recuperate on the couch under the crocheted blanket he knew was there.

((o))

The first thought Bruce had as his body got past the trauma of the transformation involved the presence of sand in places he didn't think it was possible to have sand. As he focused his eyes, he knew he was lying on his side on the Barton's front porch.

"How are you feeling?" Natasha asked as she knelt down beside him.

"Like I need to drink about a gallon of water and take a shower, probably in that order. What time is it?" he asked as he sat up and stretched.

We have almost an hour before Laura and the kids get home. Time for you to hop in the shower first, so I can get the blanket we used washed after you're out.

"I'm going to buy them a new water heater for Christmas," he mused, "one of the smaller ones that's an on-demand type for the upstairs. I think between the two of us Clint and I can get it installed upstairs."

"Oh, dear, the home-improvement disease is spreading. It's a mental illness you know," Natasha teased. She held out her hand and helped pull Bruce to his feet.

As he stood up, he used the momentum to step into an embrace with her. "May I?" he said.

"You're doing this bass-akwards, but you certainly may," she said, leaning in to give him a kiss. He met her lips, opening his mouth to see how receptive she'd be. When her tongue immediately started to probe, he couldn't keep from doing the same with her. He knew this was part of the post-transition buzz of energy, hormones, and ego he got if he wasn't exhausted, but Bruce had no desire to fight it unless she did. From the way she had just grabbed his ass, he was pretty certain she wanted to ride this out with him. Thank goodness she'd had time to get the door unlocked and their things inside because they were way too busy to mess with it now as their hands caressed and explored. As soon as they were inside, she jumped into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Bruce grasped under her thighs and ass to support her and carried her up the stairs to the guest bedroom where they stayed. He set her down on the bed, and she pulled her shirt off over her head without bothering to unbutton it. He'd already grabbed a condom out of the luggage and was stroking himself, watching her as she unzipped her jeans and let them drop to the floor.

"Come here," she said. She had the red and black panties off and was seated on the edge of the bed, so as he stepped between her thighs, she wrapped the silky lingerie around his thickening shaft and stroked him.

"Oh, Natasha!" he moaned as she worked him with her hand then leaned in close, so he was rubbing between her breasts and the bra as well. "Oh, fuck Nat! Oh, fuck!" He grabbed her shoulders, and after several strokes, he came in a gush of semen that soaked her underwear. She wiped away the come and dropped the panties to the floor. She wanted to use her mouth on him, but he shook his head. She barely kept from rolling her eyes at him. He was still hard, so he unrolled the condom over the head and down the length. "How do you want to do this?" he asked.

"Let's start slow and easy," she said as she took off her boots and scooted back onto the bed. Bruce followed her to the middle and removed her socks, taking a moment to massage her arches and kiss the top of each foot. Then he unfastened her bra as she leaned forward for him. "I've waited all day to see these lovelies," he told her with a wink as he cupped her smooth breasts in his hands and proceeded to kiss them with gentle, sloppy kisses to each in turn. He rolled the tips of the nipples between his lips and tongue till each tip stood at attention.

Bruce laid Natasha back on the bed and leaned forward over her to nuzzle her neck and throat. She pulled him in closer, enjoying the feel of his hair and skin against her and the heat of his body. She brought her legs up and rubbed them against Bruce's sides down to his strong thighs. Natasha's hands ran up from his firm ass to his broad shoulders and back, feeling the muscles ripple as he rose above her and rubbed his hard thick cock along her thighs and up to her slit. She reached down and guided him into her. Her breath hissed in as Bruce buried his shaft deep in her warm wet folds. Groaning with pleasure, Natasha wrapped her legs around his waist and locked her ankles behind his back as he thrust into her. Bruce nuzzled his face in her neck and gnawed gently at her shoulder.

"Mark me, Bruce," she whispered in his ear, and he eagerly sucked at the base of her neck, marking her with a red, red bite and bruise as Natasha moaned beneath him.

He rested his elbows on each side of her head. "You're mine, my beautiful Natasha. All mine," he said huskily as he thrust into her with a steady rhythm.

"Faster, Lover, harder please" she crooned, so he sped up and pumped into her with more force. Bruce could feel her tightening up. "Fuck me, Bruce! Please fuck me!"

"Come for me!" Bruce growled as he braced with his knees and pushed harder. Her nails dug into his back, and he jerked as she shuddered beneath him. "Oh, Nat," he breathed as he came. He could feel the warm flush of green wash through him, and he rolled off of her to his left and lay there breathing hard beside her.

Natasha tucked in under his left arm and rested her head on his chest. "I love you, Bruce," she told him. "Just a little Liminal green."

He kissed the top of her head. "I thought so," he said and then laughed. "I mean, I know so to the one and I thought so to the other."

Natasha giggled and rolled up onto her elbow. "It's already gone," she said and played with his chest hair.

"How was the Big Guy?"

"Good as gold, and after a frustrating start, he had most of his language skills within less than ten minutes. I'm seriously thinking the transition causes you brain trauma that he has to cope with each time. I kept him talking and he worked through it. Did you try something new or different this time?

"Actually, I or we did try something. As we passed each other during the transition he's figured out how to take on the physical pain of it and he tries to buffer me."

"Gee, you two wouldn't be related at all, would you?"

"I know. The caretaker gene runs deep. Anyway, it occurred to me that I should try and be helpful to him, so I relaxed, opened up, and told him to take what he needed. He wanted to be able to talk and think. Did it really work?"

"Almost as well as you right now. He suggested that the pluripotent cells are probably what is keeping the TBI scaring minimal."

Bruce sat up, "You know what? You're right. This may explain why I'm not able to remember some of what happens." He chewed the side of his thumb. "Thanks, let me think on this. It may explain a lot." He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "I love your brain so much."

"Thank you. I love yours, too, but we need to get our bodies in the shower," she told him.

"Oh, so you are going to join me this time?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course, someone has to get the rest of that sand off your scalp."

((o))

As Laura pulled the big maroon Suburban into the drive, she was glad to see Nat and Bruce waiting for them on the porch. The activities at school had taken longer than planned, so she'd had to text that they were running late. She was definitely surprised to see the dump truck loaded with sand in the driveway. "Oh my gosh, Auntie Nat and Uncle Bruce have been busy while we were at school," she told the kids in the back.

Natasha walked up to the big red vehicle and got hugs from Lila and Coop as soon as they came charging out of the back seat. Bruce had a fist bump from Coop and Lila claimed his arms as he swung her up onto his shoulders. "Lila, you're getting too big for that and Uncle Bruce might be tired since he loaded that whole truck full of sand," Laura scolded.

"I'm fine, Laura," Bruce reassured her.

"You say that now, Bruce, but wait till the morning," Laura warned.

Coop was looking at the load of sand and a muddy handprint Adam had left on the side of the truck. "Is this your handprint, Uncle Bruce?" he asked.

"Well, it looks like the Hulk's to me," Bruce said. That seemed to impress Cooper sufficiently.

While the kids and Bruce discussed the dump truck, Natasha cuddled her namesake and carried him in his pumpkin seat to the house with Laura.

"So you spent your whole afternoon loading up that mess?" Laura asked. "Bruce doesn't look the worse for wear."

"Well, that was the mud sandwich in the middle. I'm washing up one of your blankets we took with us to the back meadow.

"Oh?" Laura said, turning her head to look at Natasha. "Was it muddy in the meadow?"

"No, but we had to confront a rather large wild rodent first."

"That would be Charlie the Woodchuck. We've let him have the run of the back meadow since the kids discovered him last spring."

"He's not very friendly for something that sounds like a pet," Natasha noted.

"Clint only mowed once this summer because of him, so don't feel like you're getting special treatment. So what else did you two do in the meadow that required a blanket?" she asked with a grin."

"Well, Mrs. Barton, are you asking me to kiss and tell?" Natasha said innocently.

"I'll bet it was a lot more than kissing," Laura teased. "In fact, I think I spy some evidence under your collar."

Natasha almost started to reach for the spot Bruce had marked and bit her, but she instantly realized her friend had tried to get her to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the interrogator's handbook.

Laura laughed, "Nearly got yah," and pulled aside Natasha's shirt collar anyway as they climbed the steps to the porch. "Whoa!" She let out a low whistle of appreciation then glanced over at Bruce who was playing tag with the Lila and Cooper. "Well, he doesn't look like a zombie or a werewolf. Hmm, it's daylight, so he'd not a vampire of the sparkly or moonlight-only variety," Laura said with mock seriousness. "What kind of monster have you brought with you, Nat?"

Natasha smiled coyly, "The kind who keeps me happy morning, noon, and night."

"I thought you weren't going to kiss and tell?" Laura smirked.

"Maybe if you ply me with a good wine or some Belvedere, I'll lose my resolve," she joked.

"That can be arranged, my friend, faster than you think," Laura said as she opened the door for Natasha and the baby. "The weekend has just started!"

 **End Notes:** Hope you enjoyed this! Questions, comments, and conversations are always welcome.

I've not made up my mind if the flashback is over, so let me know if you want the rest of the weekend now or not.


	49. Chapter 49

Chapter 49: Kisses, Kleenexes, and Kindness

 **Summary:** Continuing Natasha's flashback to the Barton Farm. Clint arrives back home. Friday night is movie night. If you've not watched _The Princess Bride_ , you should go do that right now! Maybe have some stroganoff for dinner, too!

 **Notes:** Thank you all for your patience. School started last week and everything went nuts before that and hasn't let up. I'm glad to be back teaching, but it's become very clear that I'm not physically to 100% and I am still as always to Autumn-Froste for her inconceivably wonderful beta skills!

The sun was almost setting as Clint pulled the old Chevy Super Sport into the gravel drive beside Laura's Suburban. He'd been helping Laura's brother Allen with a carpentry project, which had turned into a wiring project, which had almost turned into a demolition project before it was done. He was relieved to see Bruce and Nat's borrowed silver Audi and surprised to see the sand-laden dump truck ahead of them in the driveway. Once he'd retrieved his bags from the '72 Camaro's trunk and locked his toolkits away in the barn, Clint slipped onto the back mud porch and removed his heavy work boots. He had a friendly score to settle with Natasha from their last visit, but he was willing to bide his time. As he eased the backdoor open, the archer was greeted with pleasant smells and a warm smile and then a hug from Laura who was putting the finishing touches on the stroganoff while talking to Bruce who was either feeding or entertaining Nate in his highchair. Natasha and the older children were engrossed in a competitive game of Mario something on the far side of the living room.

Laura grinned as she tossed the sour cream container in recycling. "Well, it's about time you were back," his wife said as she gave him a peck on the cheek, which he returned with a kiss on the lips, which she returned with a bit of passion and a prolonged squeeze to Clint's ass before she let him loose. "So how is Allen?" she asked.

"When I left he had electricity, running water, and a roof over his head, which is more than he had when I got there," Clint said as he scratched his sandy hair and laughed. "We ended up ripping out some of the old knob and tube wiring and couldn't thread it through the wall up from the basement, so we had to chip out a channel in that horsehair plaster. He's going to have to patch in some drywall now, but at least we learned something from it."

"Which is?" she asked with a skeptical tone as she poured the cooked noodles to drain in a colander.

"Don't mess with the old wires again until he's ready to replace all of it with a total rewiring job," the archer said with a tired sigh. "Oh, by the way, 'Hi, Bruce!' Didn't mean to ignore you."

"That's okay, Clint. This little guy is keeping me busy," Bruce reported as he wiped the last of the cereal and fruit puree off the baby's face and hands with a warm washcloth.

Clint gave his youngest a kiss on the head. "Nate, ya little slacker, you're letting Uncle Bruce get away without food all over him." Nate reached up for his father and babbled as Clint picked him up.

"Not that he didn't try," Bruce said with a grin as he washed off his glasses and dried them on his shirttail.

"Did you guys have fun with the sand?" Clint asked, "I can't believe you two jumped on that today without me. Thanks for getting it loaded though. I really appreciate it!"

"Nat said Hulk had a good time. I hope we didn't put too many ruts in your side road," Bruce warned. "You know, I didn't think about it till just now, but Hulk may have left some tracks."

"Don't worry. We're in pretty tight with local law enforcement and most of the neighbors, so they'll cover if there's anything 'odd'."

"Natasha said she and Hulk didn't see anyone, and they stayed on your property, so maybe there won't be a green Sasquatch sighting," Bruce said with a shrug.

Laura grinned, "Bruce, even if there is, it's almost Halloween, so no one will take it too seriously."

Just then a loud burst of laughter erupted from across the living room. "Auntie Nat, you cheated!" accused Cooper.

"She did not," Lila crowed. "She just beat you fair and square!"

Clint laughed, "Do I sense an epic battle of Mario Kart? That should not be happening without me."

"You called it," Laura said. "Now, you two bigger kids are not going to spend all weekend battling to the death on that thing."

"Who? Me?" Clint asked innocently.

Laura gave him a stern look. "Dinner is ready, so please shut it down and clean up, you three or four or how many."

"Not till after I collect my hugs," Clint said and dropped his bag of dirty clothes in the laundry room before Coop and Lila grabbed him and he shooed them toward the downstairs bathroom.

"Welcome home, Dad," said Natasha as she packed up the gaming equipment. She stood up and gave Clint a hug around the baby. "So what are you going to use all that sand for?"

He placed his index finger on his lips as he slid little Nate to his other hip and leaned in, "It's a surprise for Laura. We have clay all around the house from the original excavating for the foundation, and she can't get the flower and herb garden between here and the barn to grow like she wants. I'm going to amend the soil with the sand, so that way it will loosen up the clay. I may try sifting some to see if it's good enough to use with the concrete work we need to do."

"Darn, here we were thinking it was going to be a volleyball pit or a huge sand castle," she teased.

"I wish," Clint said as he checked Nate's diaper before putting him in his playpen. "Don't tell Lila or she'll be in it and trying to tunnel through. I think she's part gopher."

Soon they were all seated around the large kitchen table and enjoying dinner. The kids told them about their Halloween parties at school, and they all shared a laugh about Charlie the Woodchuck. "That rodent managed to do what very few people have ever managed if it fought you to a standstill, Nat," Clint said and clucked with his tongue.

"Hey, he is surprisingly large. What did you call him, Bruce?" she asked.

"A Rodent of Unusual Size," he said.

"Oh, from _The Princess Bride_ ," said Laura. "Haven't we shown that to you, Nat? It's got Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin and André the Giant and Chris Sarandon."

"You'll notice she knew all the actors and left out Robin Wright," Clint teased.

"Hey, sexy guys and sword fights and pirates and TRUE LOVE! How does it get any better?" Laura protested. "How did we not have you watch this?"

"It's inconceivable!" Bruce joked. "I don't know how we've avoided it either. It's in my top ten. Wait, Nat, are you really sure you've not seen it? I make references to it all the time."

"Like what?" she asked.

" _As you wish_ . . . _Don't get involved in a land war in Asia_ . . ." Bruce said.

" _Have fun storming the castle_. . . _He's not all dead_ . . ." Laura tried, but Natasha looked at them blankly and shook her head.

"Well, we do have the Blu-Ray," Clint offered with a sigh. "So I guess we could watch it this evening if you want. The kids are old enough to get it now."

"I'd much rather do that than watch you guys game all evening," Laura said.

Clint snorted. He was pretty sure he'd been had. As they finished up dinner and cleaned up, Natasha followed Bruce upstairs after he excused himself. He was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, so she leaned on the doorframe and watched him while she waited. He eyed her as he finished up. "You are so full of shit," he said in a low voice. "What is your game this evening, Ms. Romanoff?" he asked with a smirk that mirrored her own.

"It's called I-don't-want-to-stay-up-till-3am-playing-Mario-Kart-with-Clint," she explained with a roll of her eyes as she dug out her toothbrush.

"Okay, I think I'm on board with that," Bruce said as he rubbed her shoulders. She relaxed back into his hands and hips as she finished up at the sink.

"So far you're playing your part just fine, Doc. Besides, we haven't watched this since we both started living under Stark's roof, so it has been a good long while."

"It has been that long," Bruce said, remembering back to them both sitting at opposite ends of the couch in the commons room until she'd lured him out by sharing a big bowl of popcorn. He took a deep breath when he thought about their hands touching as they both groped for the last kernels at the bottom of the bowl. It was the first time they'd touched if one didn't count Hulk knocking her into a bulkhead. He shuddered involuntarily. It had been her peace offering, and they'd gone on to watch Errol Flynn in _Captain Blood_ after that and several other films. It had become _their_ thing to do that was outside of work, and until she left to join Steve on assignment in DC, Friday movies had anchored their weeks as their friendship found its beginning and grew.

Natasha was thinking about the same thing as she turned around to face Bruce and snuggled into his warm arms. "You were so pathetically skinny I could still count your ribs. I wanted to sit you down and feed you for a week."

"Well, you did insist on ordering pizza and making me eat most of it," he recalled with a chuckle.

"Yah, and now you're all muscly," Natasha said as she ran her hands over his back and down to his glutes.

"You take good care of me," he said and bent down to kiss her gently on the lips.

"EEWWWWE!" came a chorus from the hall. "You two are as gross as Mom and Dad," said Cooper, looking in at them from out in the hall. "The movie is ready," Lila chirped as the two retreated downstairs.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it, kids," Bruce whispered in a low voice.

"Well, this movie ought to go over just great with those two," Natasha noted sarcastically before she stood up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. For the hundred-thousandth and something time she thought about how perfect his lips were for kissing. She parted her lips and flicked the bottom of his tongue as he explored. They were definitely going to do more of this later—comments from the peanut gallery or not. "Hmm, do I detect a hint of minty freshness?" she asked, which made Bruce laugh after they broke off the lip lock.

"Right genre, wrong movie. We should have requested a double feature," he said with a grin and raised eyebrows.

"We'll have to see if it's worth pushing our luck," Natasha said and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before taking his hand and leading him downstairs.

By the time they reached the Fire Swamp and the Rodents of Unusual Size, Lila and Cooper were mostly won over and both were ready to sword fight, which turned into dawning "holocaust cloak" blankets and storming the sofa "castle." Clint and Laura were curled up on one end of the couch and Natasha and Bruce were on the other. Lila had started out on Natasha's lap before climbing on Bruce and telling him he looked kind of like Prince Humperdinck, "Are you sure you don't have relatives in Florin, Uncle Bruce?"

"No, Sweetie, just Ohio and California and maybe New York," he said. " _Banner_ is a French name, so maybe I have some ancestors there."

"Joan of Arc was French," she said.

"You're right. She was very brave," Bruce said.

"She could have used a holocaust cloak," Natasha added.

As the credits and the theme music played at the movie's end, Lila hugged Bruce and then Natasha, pulling them closer together. "Now you two should kiss," she said as she scooted off Bruce's lap.

"Are you sure? Right here in front of you?" asked Natasha. "I thought we completely grossed you out."

"No, not really. You two have true love, so you can kiss," she said bashfully.

"Well, if you say it's okay," Bruce said, "I guess it would be a shame to waste the moment." Natasha rolled her eyes and leaned over for a fairly chaste kiss.

"Aww, come on! You two can do better than that," Clint teased. "If you're going to fib to get out of Mario Kart, the least you can do is put on a better demonstration of 'twu wuv'." Laura punched him in the arm. "Well, they're not in a hurry to get to 'maiwage,' are they?" Clint asked.

"We have plenty of time," Bruce noted as he tilted his head and gave Natasha a less chaste kiss. She laced her fingers behind his neck and kept kissing him as he turned her and maneuvered Natasha into his lap. She did him one better by straddling his knees before they finally broke off their kiss. Bruce was flushed deep crimson and almost out of breath. "Wow," he said, and she grinned before they both started laughing.

"All right, break it up if you can't keep it G-rated you, two!" Clint laughed.

"Jealous," said Natasha as she slid off Bruce's lap on his other side, so she was sitting next to Laura. They both sat there and giggled like they were Lila's age while Clint rolled his eyes and Bruce grinned.

"With that, I think it's time for you to go to bed, kids," Laura said as she leaned on Natasha's knee to get up. When Clint started to rise, she put her hand on his shoulder and pushed him back on the couch.

"Keep it down so you don't wake up your little brother," Clint instructed. Coop and Lila hugged the adults on the couch and followed Laura upstairs.

"Clint, you two have yourselves a beautiful family," Bruce said with a fond smile as Natasha tucked in under his arm.

"Thanks, man," Clint said as he got up and stretched. "Anyone thirsty? I've got some local brew that's good if you like dark, or . . . I see more wine," he said as he checked the fridge.

"How hoppy is the beer?" Bruce asked.

"Not bad. The finish is smooth," Clint said. "Hey, Nat, I have one for you," he said as he pulled out a brown bottle with a green label. Natasha rose from the couch and Bruce followed her over into the kitchen. Clint handed her a bottle of Wood Chuck Hard Cider with a grin.

"Hair of the rodent that didn't bite you?" Bruce asked.

"It's a bit sweeter than what I usually drink, but why not?" she said. Clint uncapped it and a couple of local darks for Bruce and himself.

"So how are you not flat on your back yet, Bruce?" Clint asked. "Usually, the Big Guy seems to knock you out."

"The simple answer is we're not stressed out or overtaxed, but I'll still sleep really well tonight."

Clint shook his head, "You moved that much wet sand and he's not 'overtaxed'?"

"He didn't have to get mad or anything," Natasha said as she sipped her cider. "In fact, he was much more frustrated about his language skills than anything else, even after I splattered him from head to toe in mud."

"Well, that was nice of you," Clint said.

"I did not do it on purpose. The truck slid up that little incline to the two lane," she explained.

"Yah, you say that now with Bruce here," Clint teased.

"Unlike some people, the Big Guy has a sense of humor," Natasha said, "so he took it all in stride."

Clint studied Bruce for a moment. "Since we're standing here in the kitchen drinking a brew together, there's something I've wanted to ask you, Doc."

"Ask away," Bruce said as he leaned against the counter.

"Do you remember anything from when you're the Hulk after you're back to you?"

Bruce chewed his lower lip in thought. "Do you want the short answer or the detailed one?"

"I've got no place to be but bed, and I'm too wound up to settle down yet," Clint said as he pulled up a barstool to the counter. Natasha grabbed a couple more stools and slid one over to Bruce who sat down on the opposite side of the counter from Clint while she took the end spot on the peninsula.

Bruce thought carefully about how much to say because conversations like this could get uncomfortable very quickly, but he wanted to be honest with Clint because he was a friend to him and undeniably Natasha's best friend. The archer had also worked with Hulk quite a bit over the past few years, so Bruce felt he owed him an honest answer. Bruce took a drink of the dark brown liquid and turned the bottle in his hands. "It varies, Clint, and it's changed over time. Before the Battle of New York, it was only confused bits and pieces. After that it improved a little, so things were somewhat more coherent. A lot of it's images and emotions without much of a framework to understand or interpret what happened."

"So you don't remember the fights with Ross or any of that 'Sasquatch' stuff in the files?"

"Like only through an acid trip darkly," Bruce said with a shrug as he held up the brown bottle with its darker brown liquid to the light. "I'm just now remembering some of the run-in I had with Logan in Canada during that period. Hulk remembers more than I do, but it's still very sketchy. Since Sokovia, we've made a concerted effort to get along, so I, err, _we_ can interact and that helps. If the transition between us is smooth, and we need to cooperate, I'm remembering quite a few details now. It also depends on how much he needs me. I try to be available for him, but we're still sort of negotiating things. The more time he spends out and in charge, the better he's been doing. Anyhow," he sighed, "you don't make someone's life hell for years then expect everything to be healed up overnight."

Clint studied Bruce's body language and demeanor. People often mistook the physicist for being repressed and totally cerebral, but Clint had always sensed that the well of emotions beneath the guy's surface ran deep. He had moved on from the "always angry" mindset of a few years ago to an attitude akin to Nat's. Yep, Bruce was dealing with red in his ledger, and a good bit of it came from very close to home. He still seemed to be dealing with some pretty heavy guilt where Hulk was concerned. "You and the Big Guy really aren't the same person, are you?"

"No, we're not, but we overlap a bit. Most people wouldn't notice a big difference," Bruce said with a snort.

"I do," said Natasha, flashing Bruce a concerned look. "He's not you, but you're more alike than you are different."

Bruce looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but he didn't argue. He knew he had memory and disassociation issues, so he never had a full picture. Thanks to her training and instincts, Natasha was a solid judge of character, and she had made it her business to study him and Hulk. She was the one person who knew them both well, and they both trusted her. Right now she was warning him not to dwell on past mistakes.

"Clint, one thing Bruce is not saying is how painful it all is. There's the torture of the physical transformation when they're ripped apart down to the cellular level. Then there's the sensory overload on top of that. Even when it all goes smoothly, the pain is chronic and there's no way to treat it."

Clint nodded, "I knew it hurt, but I had no clue it was that intense all the time."

"Well, to be fair," Bruce added, "it does get to a manageable level if Hulk stays stable long enough. It doesn't ever quit hurting, but he's very stoic about tolerating the pain. There's almost a sweet spot or golden period when the pain is manageable and before the sensory onslaught gets to be a too much."

"Shit, no wonder he seems pissed off most of the time," Clint said. "There's nothing you can take for it to at least dull it up for a little bit?"

"We've tried a few things, but our metabolism burns it off before it can do any good. If we took the dosage much higher, there may not be enough control. I really don't want to think about him stumbling around drunk or high," Bruce concluded.

"No, definitely not," Clint said with a shudder. "Have you tried acupuncture or acupressure or something more homeopathic?"

"I've used acupuncture with some success, but I don't think it's possible to use it on Hulk." They all had a chuckle picturing that. "What type of acupressure do you mean?"

"It's kind of what chiropractors or a masseuse would do, but you can use it on yourself with your hands and feet." When Bruce still looked puzzled and so did Natasha, Clint shook his head. "Here, give me one of your hands, Doc," he said reaching across the table. "This is going to hurt more than a lullaby." He took ahold of Bruce's left hand and held it palm down in both of his. "When you have a headache, pinch the webbing between your thumb and the first finger. It may hurt at first, but the more it stings or aches, the more pressure you're relieving."

Bruce almost jumped because the pain was so sharp, but it subsided as Clint worked between each finger and returned to the initial spot and firmly pinched and pulled a few more times before working the fingers themselves. "Wow, this is sort of like what happens with a foot massage, but I didn't think it would feel like that," Bruce said.

"I know you work on Nat's feet. If you understand how the instep follows the corresponding connections on your spine, just follow the same pattern on your hands. The thumbs and big toes are your head then the rest just lines up." Clint paused to look at Bruce's palm. "Hmm, did you know your life line and your head line don't intersect? That's kind of unusual. Not that I believe in any of that stuff," he added.

"Yah, I've been told that before." Bruce tried duplicating what Clint had shown him on his right hand.

Natasha chuckled, "Well, at least it will give you both something to do with your hands."

"Thanks, man. It's definitely something worth trying," Bruce said. "If one of you shows the Big Guy how to do it, he should be able to try it tomorrow."

"Speaking of that," Laura said as she came down the stairs. "How are we going to handle everything tomorrow? I have two kiddos up there looking forward to getting a glimpse of the Hulk like he was Santa Claus."

Bruce looked at Laura and then Clint with concern. "I don't think they should get that close to him. He means well, but I don't want anyone getting hurt. I couldn't live with that."

"They can get a good enough look at Hulk from the porch while we're down at the end of the field," Clint said. "If we get on it early, Bruce, there will still be enough darkness and fog for cover, so we don't have to worry about the neighbors."

"Ah, you guys are no fun," Natasha teased then became more sober. "Seriously though, why don't you wait to see how the Big Guy is doing before you set your plans in stone?"

Bruce gave her an alarmed look, "Natasha . . ."

"Bruce," she said. "I'm not saying let the kids go sit on his lap or anything like that. I'm just saying, hold off and see how he's doing. It's not fair to treat him like he has the plague just on principle anymore. We've been working on socializing him for months now, and all he's done is make progress."

"It's not written in stone either way," Laura emphasized. She stood behind Clint with her hand resting on his shoulder. "I'm not so sure about the kids, but if the Big Guy is willing, I'd like to thank him. He's saved this idiot's butt on more than one occasion."

Bruce puffed out his breath. He still wasn't comfortable with the Hulk interacting with "civilians," but he didn't want to dismiss what Natasha had said. "I guess we'll just play it by ear then."

"I'm good with that," Natasha responded with a genuinely pleased smile. "What else do you have on the itinerary for him to do after tree stump wrestling?"

Clint had his arm around Laura and he looked at her for verification as he spoke. "Demo on the old outbuilding we're replacing or digging out the old ceramic culverts at the water crossing and replacing them or working with the sand, right?"

"I can't think of anything else," Laura said, shaking her head.

"That should keep him busy for a while," Bruce said. "If you can tire him out, we'll appreciate it."

"Speak for yourself, Doc. You're kinda fun when you're still a little gamma buzzed," Natasha teased.

Bruce blushed. "You know what I mean," he said as he gave her a chagrinned side-eye.

Laura and Clint looked at each other. "Uh, do tell," said Laura with a smile full of mock innocence on her face as she batted her eyes.

Nat looked like the spider who ate the canary, so she didn't say anything, which left Bruce on the hook. He was still noticeably blushing and had to clear his throat first. "Let's just say, if you don't tire the Hulk out, I have to tire me out," he attempted to clarify without being explicit.

Clint snorted, "No wonder Nat wants to distract the Big Guy."

"I never said that," she corrected. "He has a very solid work ethic, so be sure everything is planned out and lined up for him."

Clint nodded and stretched his arms above his head, "We've got it covered."

Bruce looked over at Natasha. "I don't know about you, but I'm going to start yawning," he said as he covered his mouth.

"Okay, Cinder-fella, let's get you to bed," she said as she slid off the barstool. They said their goodnights to the Bartons and headed upstairs. The guest suite was over the living room at the front of the house, while the master suite and the children's bedrooms were at the back of the house.

Once their bedroom door was closed, Bruce pulled Natasha close to him and gently placed his hands on both sides of her face as he kissed her on the mouth. She let her hands rest on his hips and concentrated her attention on just feeling and experiencing what he was doing. His lips moved over hers and his tongue brushed over them. He had shaved earlier, so his skin was smooth to the touch as he nuzzled against her face. He breathed her in deeply and gave a small moan of contentment that sounded like a purr in her ears. She parted her lips as he kissed her again, and their tongues met. She inhaled sharply through her nose and took in his masculine smell of musk over silky caramel and warm salt over his aftershave. Her knees felt unusually fluid and she reached back to steady herself against the wall. He stepped forward to brace her and moved his hands down to her waist and then around her back to support her. "I am so drawn to you," he finally breathed into her ear as he reluctantly broke off the kiss. "If the day didn't start so early and we were at home, I'd do everything I did to you in the meadow all over again."

Natasha embraced him with a tight lingering hug before pulling back a bit, so she could see his face. Her eyes were twinkling with amusement, "What are you, like forty-three going on eighteen now? We have all weekend, hot stuff." She grabbed his ass and squeezed for emphasis.

"You, my Love, are so . . . ornery," he said with a grin. "Hulk may be the strongest, but it's my pleasure to keep you happy."

"First, I'm not 'ornery,' and second, you keep me very happy, and it's not just your magnificent abilities in bed or on a blanket in a meadow or in a shower. It's how I feel when I'm with you. I know I'm loved." She stroked the side of his face, and he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. Natasha kissed the other side of his face. "Now, let's get cleaned up and in bed so we can have some full-contact cuddle time."

"I'm all for that," he said.

As they settled in bed, she pulled him close and snuggled against his back. When they were at home in the tower and sleeping in their own bed, they had to keep the climate control set low even though his temps had mostly evened out over the past few months. On the occasions he had a temperature spike, she usually rolled away in her sleep, and he would wake up and take a cold shower. If it were close to 6:00am, she would either join him or wait for him to come back and see how he felt. More often than not, there was kissing and touching that led to other things. At the moment, Bruce was putting off heat at a comfortable rate for her to snuggle as she ran her hand through his chest hair. Nat knew the extra heat meant he had not burned off the rest of the excess Gamma-supplied energy left from the Hulk transformation. Right now, it didn't bother her because his warmth felt so nice against her bare skin, but she knew it was going to be another game of guesswork tomorrow.

Today it was an excess of energy, but tomorrow there might be nothing left when he changed back, and Bruce would be shoving down carbs and protein before going into a near coma for any number of hours. After missions, it was always this way because Hulk tended to get a serious workout while in the field. The problem was there hadn't been that many Code Greens since Sokovia for obvious reasons, so everything was all left up in the air. Therapy sessions were a completely different situation because they taxed Hulk mentally rather than physically. Bruce always said Hulk was the one who paid the price and went comatose for those. Come to think of it, today had been more like a mix between a Code Green and therapy session because he'd used both physical and mental abilities. She hadn't thought to ask Bruce how distant Hulk felt that evening, but that would have to wait till tomorrow. Well, she'd worried it to death all she could, so now the control freak in her would just have to make due. Bruce was already out cold, as she knew he would be, so she held him close and made her lists in her head until she fell asleep.

((o))

Bruce wasn't surprised to find Adam in a beautifully detailed recreation of the Bartons' meadow as soon as he fell asleep. "Please tell me you did not include Charlie Woodchuck," Bruce said as he approached through the long grass. Adam had been lying on his back on a blanket and gazing at clouds. He rolled onto his side and sat up as Bruce approached.

"No. No RoUSs to fight. I'm a little too tired anyway," Adam said and he rolled to his feet. He was wearing a version on Bruce's uniform pants and a white tank top like Bruce wore in the tropics.

Bruce studied his alter ego for a moment. Instead of being elementary school age, Adam was taller than his shoulder and, now that he thought about it, the kid's voice had cracked a bit as he spoke. Clearly, he was trying something new. "Well, how did you like the heavy construction work?"

"Not bad. I always look forward to working with Natasha," Adam replied. "I did like you suggested and just worked through the awkward moments." He smiled and shook his head. "She likes to get in my space sometimes. I think she wants to show me she's not afraid of me as Hulk."

"While you're naked, right?" Bruce snorted with amusement and shook his head. "I'm sure that helped you concentrate on your communication skills."

"Yah, there was that complication, but I did okay. It took a few minutes for my mind to clear and the words to kick in, but they did. Thanks for the help."

"Good job," Bruce said and they fist bumped. "Any time you want to do that let me know. Maybe tomorrow you could concentrate on mechanical knowledge since that's what you'll be applying. By the way, I appreciate you shielding me, but if we have to transition on the fly, concentrate on the skill sets you're going to need, not on taking on all the physical pain. I will manage fine, and I'll feel better knowing you have the tools you need."

Adam traced one of the patterns in the quilt with his toe, "All right, if you're going to insist, but I was fine. By the way, nice job with the house. How did you figure it out?"

Now it was Bruce's turn to fess up. "When I told you to take anything you wanted during the transition this morning, it occurred to me that we might be able to switch skills sets, and maybe if it was reciprocal, it might go smoother for both of us. I just thought it would be neat to build like you do then, when it was just me here, I knew how to do it. Sorry, I guess I should have asked first, but it just popped into my head." Bruce looked over at Adam, not sure how he'd take this encroachment on his territory. The physicist was relieved to see his younger doppelganger laughing at him.

"This is great, Bruce! We can work together on things. How'd you decide on the Bartons' house?"

"I just thought you'd be curious about it," Bruce said.

"I am. It was a good choice," Adam added. "See if you can make something here."

Bruce looked around them, but he couldn't identify anything as missing. He certainly was not going to imagine Charlie, but there had been insects there. He thought about the dragonflies and how their wings were constructed, their look, and their behavior. He held out his hand and one buzzed above his fingertips before flying off. A half dozen more joined it as they flitted above the grass.

Adam held out his hand and one landed on his fingertips. He smiled with pleasure as he examined it from different angles. "This is so beautiful and perfect," he murmured. It flew off and he made a few more that joined Bruce's squadron as they hovered in random patterns across the meadow.

"A lot of people like butterflies, but Mom always liked dragonflies," Bruce said as he remembered.

"And her other favorites were the ones at night," Adam mentioned.

"Fireflies," Bruce answered. The light in the sky began to fade on cue. "Let's head back and we can work on the house some more."

"I'd like to do that," Adam replied as he bent down to gather up and shake out the blanket before folding it.

Bruce grabbed the opposite corners to help, and he looked at the blanket more closely. It was a quilt, but it wasn't the same one he and Natasha had borrowed. Its background was a faded French blue, and it had red stars, green circles, and yellow moons. "Where did this come from?" he asked Adam.

"Your old bedroom," Adam noted with a puzzled look before he could think. "Do you not remember it?"

Bruce looked at it, "Uh, it's kind of familiar, but not really."

Adam didn't say anything. He wasn't about to imagine it with the cigarette burn marks along the edge. "No big deal," he said and started them walking back to the house. Soon there were tiny yellow-green flickers lighting their way through the twilight woods. Neither of them said anything until they were halfway back.

"Adam, you don't need to protect me," Bruce finally said. "Tell me what happened with the blanket?"

Adam had been hugging the quilt to his chest, "Sometimes, when you disassociate things, it's for a good reason."

"I still want to know," Bruce said stubbornly.

Adam stopped and Bruce turned to face him. Adam reached out and took ahold of Bruce's forearm. He shifted into Bruce's twin, but he didn't let go. Instead, he ran his thumb across a faded white scar that was an almost perfect circle on his brother's elbow. If Bruce could remember that, he should remember the rest, Adam reasoned. He was cursing himself inwardly for even imagining the quilt. Bruce looked at his arm, and Adam could see the world tilt behind his eyes.

"I . . . I knew Dad gave me that, but I forgot the details till now."

Adam thought Bruce looked numb, but even in the half-light he saw the tears. He stepped in closer and hugged Bruce to him with the quilt between them. Then, Adam changed things, so they were standing on the porch where he sat Bruce down on the wooden swing. He wrapped the quilt around him and sat down beside him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, not unless you do," Bruce said. "I knew on the intellectual level that this happened, but I guess I repressed the feelings connected to it."

"Well, I'm really sorry I fucked up and imagined it here," Adam said.

"It's okay. I needed to remember this at some point."

"I screwed up. You're in pain again."

"Adam, I asked you; I wanted to know. If I have to remember, I want to do it with the one person who went through this shit with me." Bruce turned and took ahold of Adam's shoulders so he could look him in the eyes. "This isn't fun, but it's okay. We're both okay. We survived it." Adam nodded. "He tried to make us think we were the monster because we're different, but we know better now."

Adam held onto Bruce's arms and gently touched his forehead to his, "It's okay. We're both okay."

"Yes, it's perfect," Bruce said and they stayed still like that for a minute until he started to laugh.

"What?" asked Adam. "Let me in on the joke."

"You know what would make this more perfect? Kleenexes."

"Check your pocket, Bro." Bruce started laughing like that was the funniest thing ever as he pulled tissue after tissue out of his pants pocket like an illusionist. "Or you could just imagine you don't need one," Adam suggested with a bit of an eye roll.

Bruce was still chuckling as they both leaned back on the swing. It really was dark now and the fireflies were out. There were two different species whose color and cadence were slightly different. Bruce imagined the crickets, the tree peepers, and the pond's bull frogs down by the road, and the night came alive with sound. They sat there and took it all in for a good long while as the constellations moved in the starry sky.

"Perfect?" Adam finally asked.

"Yes, perfect," Bruce confirmed as his eyelids became heavy, and he slipped off into a deeper sleep.

 **End Notes:** Finally, got in the _Princess Bride_ chapter! I have made a lot of references to the film already, so it's time we actually watched it. Did you catch the Now You See Me reference? I'm not going to make promised about when the next chapter will be up since it seems to doom me. I do know we'll continue on with the Barton farm post, I live for the comments and conversations! Let me know what you think. Before anyone says-I want Nat and Bruce to get back together-remember that we have the whole itinerary of conference activities to check off and a freaking flood to fight back in Cincinnati waiting for us.


	50. Chapter 50

50: Marks and Scars

 **Summary:** Still in Natasha's flashback at the Barton Farm. Bruce remembers how he got the scar on his arm. Adam meets the Bartons. Farm chores are mostly done. Clint is a good dad, and Laura has hidden talents.

 **Notes:** YEA! Here we are at Chapter 50 and it's a double-sized one! Don't want to give too much away, but lots of fun of all sorts on the Barton Farm.

Yes, this is a mature chapter.

Yes, we have a flashback with remembered child abuse.

As always, much love and thanks to Autumn_Froste who Beta-read and served as resident construction and tattoo expert among her many talents.

Worked really hard on this, so let me know if you enjoy it!

Adam was watching Bruce watching himself relive a memory from when they were almost eight years old. Adam wasn't hiding the fact that he was there observing, but he had kept his distance when he followed Bruce as his twin fell further into his dreams. Their mother would have called Adam a "worrywart" or a maybe a "nervous Nelly," but he'd been the one to remember and recreate the quilt that had triggered this traumatic little blast from the past. He felt responsible and feared he'd reopened a Pandora's box of buried emotions, but part of him hoped this wasn't such a bad thing. Bruce said he remembered the facts, so it was really just the emotional component that was detached and repressed. Adam gave Bruce his privacy when it came to sex and his personal therapy, but Adam suspected Cecily was encouraging Bruce to reconnect with his emotions in a healthier way than he had in the past. Just maybe this would help and not harm.

"You're awfully quiet, Adam," Bruce said without looking away from the scene below.

"I thought you might want your space, but I didn't want to desert you completely. I'll leave if you want."

"No, please stay," Bruce said as he patted the spot to his right. Adam sat down on the hardwood bench next to Bruce who reached over and took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Adam breathed an internal sign of relief. As his surroundings came into sharper focus, he realized they were in a very old style of college lecture hall or maybe an operational theater where they could observe the memory. Wow, a pensive without the water and a private wizengamot box. This was going to be fun, fun, fun, Adam thought. Well, if it helped Bruce, he was all in.

((o))

In the memory Bruce was asleep in the bed with his ragdoll named Guardian tucked under his arm. There was enough moonlight flooding in from the windows to clearly see the appliqued stars, moons, and circles on the quilt. Everything looked innocent and peaceful at the moment. That's when they heard the car pull into the driveway and someone get out and climb the steps to the backdoor. It was so quiet, Adam thought he heard their father fumbling with his keys and then the unmistakable crash of a dropped liquor bottle as it hit the concrete step. The child in the bed flinched, and a tirade of slurred cruse words erupted from the back steps and continued as the person entered the kitchen. The dropped bottle was bad news. If their father could have sat down and finished the bottle in the kitchen, he probably would have passed out down there as he usually did. Bruce's room was above the kitchen, so they could hear Brian Banner rummaging through the cabinets there and then stumbling into the dining room. Adam knew the child in the bed was praying for him to pass out, but it wasn't going to happen. Brian went back into the kitchen, probably to get a glass. He was at least classy enough not to drink straight from the bottle Adam thought and looked over at Bruce who was smiling grimly and clearly thinking the same sarcastic thought.

They continued to listen as Brian drank and talked to himself. The boy in bed fell back asleep until there was another crash from downstairs as a chair tipped over. They could hear papers being torn and crumpled and the slurred ranting was replaced by growls of outrage. Soon unsteady footsteps made their way up the stairs and stopped outside Bruce's door. From here they could smell the Old Crow whiskey and sloe gin as well as the cigarettes on him. Bruce knew this meant his father had been drinking alone and not at the officer's club; otherwise, he'd have smelled of Maker's Mark bourbon and cigars. This also meant he was angry about something at work since he wasn't bragging at the bar on base.

Bruce had known this was one of the nights his mother had taken a sleeping pill, so she could be ready for a job interview tomorrow. She hoped to keep this secret from her husband, but as soon as she had a little money put away, she planned to take Bruce and leave. A couple of years before they had installed a simple lock on the inside of Bruce's bedroom door and another one on the inside of his closet in case things got really bad and he had to hide. "Really bad" had happened a few times. Tonight Bruce had set the lock while she listened, so she knew he was safe, while he waited for her to do the same behind her door. What she didn't know was that Bruce had unlocked his. To his child's way of thinking, if he lured his father off or sidetracked him, that meant the man would leave his mother alone. It wasn't the best plan in the world, but sometimes it worked. Tonight it worked almost too well.

As Brian pushed the door opened, Bruce pretended to sleep and kept breathing deeply. Beneath his eyelids, he could see the glow of the cigarette as it dangled from his father's mouth. The sickly sweet smell of the sloe gin almost overpowered the acrid smoke as the man lurched nearer. The boy forced himself to keep breathing and stay relaxed through sheer force of will as Brian exhaled his stinking, hot breath in his son's face. "Wake up!" he hissed in the boy's ear, and Bruce jumped, more from tension than surprise.

"Dad?" he said as he struggled to sit up.

Brian sat down heavily on the side of the bed, "Listen here, you little creep. I know what you're doing. You don't fool me for one minute." He shoved a piece of paper into Bruce's chest, so the boy reached over to turn on the lamp and retrieve his glasses.

((o))

Adam wasn't sure what he'd been expecting Brian Banner to look like, but the pathetic wreck of a man sitting almost on top of the boy wasn't it. Yes, he was scary as hell with those bleary red-rimmed eyes, but it was because here was the ruin of a man who was destroying himself from the inside rather than a force of supreme evil. He knew Brian was just under six feet tall, but this man was bent and beaten down. The thinning dark straight hair was plastered to his head with grease and sweat, and underneath the alcohol and cigarettes was the sour smell of BO and halitosis. At some point, he'd fallen down and ripped the left knee of his dress pants. There was a little dried blood in the scent mix because of that.

"I thought he'd be . . . bigger or scarier," Bruce murmured beside him. "I don't remember him being that thin and gaunt."

"Me either," whispered Adam.

((o))

The child was now uncrumpling the drawing his father had shoved at him. It was a complex drawing of a bean-growing experiment from school from which Bruce estimated the generations it would take to develop a hybrid trait. There was a big red "A+++" on the corner of it, and the word "Amazing!" below that. Bruce blinked at his father, not knowing what he expected from him. "That's as high as the marks go in second grade, Dad," he said solemnly. Apparently, that wasn't the right answer because the man's sallow complexion went from clammy pale to crimson blotches. Bruce did his best not to flinch away. He knew from experience that showing weakness got you hurt faster.

"Monster!" Brian spat. "You shouldn't be able to do this. You cheated! Morris put you up to this." Bruce thought about arguing, but he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere. "Stupid biology dilettante. No gumption. No head for research. Doesn't deserve her . . ." the drunk trailed off complaining about his brother-in-law before focusing on the boy again. "Say something, little shit!" Bruce knew better but his stubborn streak was starting to assert itself after his uncle had been badmouthed, so he just stared owlishly back, not letting himself show any emotions. Unfortunately, Brian rose to the challenge. First, he sat back and flicked the ash off his dwindling cigarette at Bruce who didn't move, so next the man took a drag and blew the smoke in his son's face. Bruce had seen that coming and had sucked in a pretty good lung full of air to wait it out.

When Bruce didn't react, Brian put his mind to upping the ante. With a grin that really was evil, he took the cigarette and dramatically drew on the filtered end to make it really glow before pressing it to the quilt over Bruce's chest. The boy didn't panic but compulsively looked down just as his father pulled the cigarette away to avoid snuffing it out. There was a smoldering blackened spot that smelled of burnt cotton and polyester fill. Brian smiled triumphantly, "Made you look. Now let's see if I can make you cry." He grabbed for Guardian, but Bruce was quick enough to throw his left arm up in front of him. The cigarette burned through the synthetic material of his pajama sleeve and melted it into his flesh just above the left elbow. Bruce made the decision to jam his arm into the cigarette to snuff it out before his father thought of something sicker to do with it. Through all of this, Bruce hadn't cried out.

As the smell of burned clothing and flesh and then blood washed over them, Brian jerked back and looked in horror at his handiwork. The burn on the quilt had smothered itself out at about the size of a quarter, but the elbow of Bruce's shirt was slowly turning red around a char-marked hole in the flame-retardant material where it had stuck and pulled away a small chunk of flesh. The man looked down at his hands and dropped the extinguished butt to the floor. He didn't say anything as he got up, but he soon started mumbling. "If you'd just cry like a normal kid, I wouldn't have done it. Cry dammit. Cry, little monster." Brian staggered out into the hall and collapsed on the floor.

((o))

Bruce remembered all he could do at the time was think about the statistical odds of drunks choking on their own vomit. Maybe he was a monster. In the back of his mind, his father had laughed, "Ha, made you feel! Made you hate!" That was when Bruce shut down his already repressed emotions. It was like he'd found an off switch. If he was numb, nothing could hurt him, nothing could make him hate. It was a comfortable shell, a callus, a scar like the one that eventually covered the burn wound. It came in quite handy months later when his childhood ended with the death of his mother. It was a long time before he found the on switch again and nearly as long before he used it more than the off.

Adam looked over and Bruce was covering the scar on his elbow with his right hand and gently rubbing it. After counting to twenty, Adam decided that was enough brooding silence. "I'm sorry it's not nearly as dramatic as a lightening bolt, but at least it's not smack in the middle of your forehead either."

"Wha . . .?" Bruce looked at him with befuddlement for a moment and then caught on to the Harry Potter reference. "Oh, yah, I've got you now. Where were you when I was discussing this with Stephen Strange back in May?"

"I was uprooting flowers to provide an object lesson as I recall. You?"

"We kind of argued back and forth about who was Voldemort. I went with Dad, but your name did come up. For the record, even at my stupidest, I never put you in the same category."

"That's good to know," Adam said dryly. "Did this help?" he asked, gesturing to the scene below, which was starting to fade and drift away.

"Yah, actually, it did. This was sort of like the perfect storm of abuse, stubbornness, and autistic behavior. I still feel really numb about the physical pain, but I'm actually kind of proud of what I did. I shouldn't have had to act that way, but at least I knew what I was doing, and he didn't break me."

Adam grinned. This was what he wanted to hear from Bruce. He remembered what happened and he felt something without going to a destructive extreme. "Thanks for not letting me be burned in effigy," Adam said. "You really took one for the team."

"You're welcome. It's too bad Mom didn't get the job, but she did get one later."

"The lunch shift at the diner?"

"Yah, do you remember me meeting her there after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays?" Bruce asked.

"The owner always gave you ice cream for good grades."

"He was Greek. What was his name?"

"Papadopoulos—everyone called him Pops," Adam recalled fondly.

"I'm surprised you remember so much of this. I thought you said you napped through most days."

"Not all the time. When your emotions ran strong, it usually pulled me to consciousness. Like I told you, I did sleep through sex ed class."

"Really?" Bruce shook his head, "I thought you were joking about that."

"You didn't need me. Embarrassment is not the same thing as actual distress," Adam teased.

"Speak for yourself. It took me years and years to ask a girl out because of that class," Bruce complained.

"I didn't think you were that interested."

"No, it's you who weren't interested. I was just scared to death."

"I'm glad to see you've gotten over that," Adam grinned.

"But you've not."

"But I don't need to."

"Touché," Bruce acknowledged. "As long as you're happy, Adam."

"I'm very happy. I know it troubles you that I don't have or want what makes you happy, but there is more than one path or one recipe. I have you back for my sib. I have fulfilling things to do. I have different needs than you, and I'm at peace with that. In fact, what I really need right now is some down time."

"You're dismissing me?!" Bruce said with both eyebrows raised. "That is a first."

"We have a lot to do tomorrow and I need some me time, so go have a dream about Natasha."

"Thanks for having my back, Bro," Bruce told him as they stood for an embrace.

"Any time," Adam said, and he watched Bruce fade. Now that he was alone, Adam thought he'd head back to the meadow and watch fireflies while he thought.

((o))

Bruce just let himself drift. He imagined a lazy morning watching Natasha sleep. In his dream she pushed him onto his back and held his arms above his head. She had soft ropes, and she tied him there. He felt strangely safe and loved as she lay on top of him. Then they were running together down a beach, but it wasn't just the two of them. There was a little girl they were chasing after. She was petite and redheaded like Natasha, but she had his curls and more prominent freckles. When she turned around and he scooped her up in his arms, she had Adam's broad grin and dark green eyes. He put her back down and she ran to Natasha. He felt weak and he fell down to his knees. He couldn't seem to make his muscles or his voice work, so he sat down and watched them play. This wasn't possible of course. He knew that he was dreaming, but he could feel the happiness and he wasn't numb. The switch was definitely in the on position.

He continued to drift in and out of odd settings and scenes until he was vaguely aware he was in a bed with Natasha, but she had just gotten up for some reason. He rolled onto his back and fell asleep again. He was vaguely aware of something quite pleasurable going on below his waist. Distantly, someone was moaning and he felt someone pressing a couple of fingers to his lips because he was the source of the noise. Something smooth and wooden was placed between his teeth and he bit down: a spoon handle? He understood it was to keep him quiet. Then he felt her hands on him again. The spoon wasn't the only kind of "wood" in the bed. She touched and stroked him near the base of his shaft to keep him hard. He bit down on the handle to avoid from voicing his pleasure. He started to reach down to stroke her hair and realized something around his wrist—no both wrists—held his arms in place. Was he dreaming? No, he could tell by the smell of the place this was the guest bedroom at the Bartons' because of the dried lavender, calligraphy ink, and hot glue.

He compulsively turned his head and saw it was still very early on the bedside clock. He looked down and Natasha was sitting beside him on the bed. There was enough moonlight still streaming in through the windows to see she was smiling at him with a pleased look on her face. He couldn't smile much less talk around the spoon handle, but he cocked an eyebrow at her. His sweet, deadly spider obviously had him where she wanted him, and he certainly was game. She quietly reached over and used her phone's app to show him an extremely low gamma scan. Natasha set the phone aside and leaned forward to kiss his forehead and stroke his stubble-rough jaw. His breath came out raggedly around the handle as her right hand slid down his stomach and returned to his shaft. By now he was pretty certain what she was going to do. Part of him was extremely turned on by this, but a small insistent part of him was still deathly afraid for her. "I'm sure you've figured out I'm going down on you, and I'm going to make you come. I won't swallow, but I'm going to taste you and we're both going to enjoy this," she explained in a low voice.

Bruce sighed and let as much tension ease out of his neck and shoulders as he could, and then he let the ropes take the weight of his lower arms and hands. He told himself she was right, and he needed to get over this. She kissed his stomach, and he inhaled sharply because he could be very ticklish. She grinned up at him and continued kissing lower and lower. Her bare breasts were brushing against his side and thigh, and he wanted to touch her. He sighed and decided he needed to quit thinking and just feel and enjoy what she was doing. Natasha straddled his legs and bent down over him. He could feel her trailing her body down over his until her lips and hair brushed against him. As she got lower, she nibbled up and down his shaft as he whimpered quietly. This had been taboo for so long that it added to the excitement he felt. He wanted to beg her to suck him. He wanted to burry his fingers in her soft hair and thrust, but he held still and bit down on the handle instead.

Now she was licking him up and down and Bruce couldn't keep from arching his back. Natasha chuckled, "So you're telling me you do want this?" He whined pleadingly. "Well, if you feel that way about it," she said. She licked around the shaft, just below the head before she slipped her hot, wet lips over it and swirled her tongue around the tip, which was oozing pre-come. She took him in as deep as possible and bobbed her head as she slid his veined cock in and out of her mouth, letting the wet sounds between sucking and licking him escape. This excited him even more. She soon moved to sucking his first few inches and the tip and stroking him from the base of his shaft now that the length was slick. He wanted so badly to thrust, but he didn't out of consideration for her. Natasha backed off for a moment to adjust, and he bucked his hips and came with a groan that he tried to stifle. He could feel the hot semen splatter across his stomach. He spat out the handle and breathed hard for a moment. "Sorry," he whispered. "I couldn't stop it."

Natasha gave a low chuckle, "If we ever went full dom, I'd have to punish you."

"Uh, I guess you can if you want," he said. He was still so high from the orgasm that he might have said yes to anything she'd suggested.

"No, this isn't the place, and we'd have to discuss things ahead of time. Let me get something to clean you up." She'd packed wipes just for this and warmed them up in her hands before gently washing him down. His wrists were still tied, so she leaned forward to release the knots, but he shook his head.

"Would you please kiss me first?" he asked. "I had a dream earlier about you tying me down like this and laying on top of me."

"Do you want me to do that?"

"I'd like to try it."

Natasha carefully straddled Bruce before she eased herself on top of him. "Like this?" she asked as she shifted her torso and legs onto his while keeping some of her weight on her hands and elbows under his raised arms. He leaned up and kissed her on the cheek then she turned her head and kissed him on the mouth. As soon as her lips parted, he hungrily explored with his tongue. He could taste himself on her lips, and that satisfied him immensely despite the handwringing argument going on in the back of his head. She lowered her head to his shoulder, and he nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek. Bruce finally relaxed completely. The solid weight of her and the rhythms of her heartbeat and breathing were completely soothing. He was soon drifting off. At some point, she reached up and untied him and curled up in his arms as he held her.

Bruce woke up at his usual 6:30am and Natasha was already in the shower. He scrubbed his face with his hands and lay back for a moment. The sun would be up in just over an hour and a half. He sat up and checked his weather app. It was in the forties right now, but later it would be in the lower seventies, sunny, and clear. He got to his feet and stretched with his arms above his head and went through a few standing poses before he heard Natasha shut the shower off. He quickly stepped into the bathroom to hand her a towel as she pulled the curtain back. "Good morning," he said. She surprised him by throwing her wet body against his and kissing him. He wrapped the towel abound her back and kept kissing her as he dried her off a bit and hugged her.

"Oh, you're warm," she said, shivering a bit. "I get so used to sleeping and cuddling with you that everything else seems frigid once I'm out of the shower."

"I could warm you up in bed if you like," he offered, wrapping his arms around her a little tighter.

"No, we need to get moving. I'll warm up as soon as I'm dressed," she said as she reluctantly pulled away.

Bruce brushed his teeth while Natasha dried her hair and pulled on her clothes. He deliberated whether to shave now or wait. He rubbed his jaw and looked over at her with his best puppy-dog eyes.

She knew exactly why he was looking at her like that. "Just wait until you get cleaned up afterward. It's not like I'll be kissing the Big Guy."

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I hear he can be quite charming when he feels like it."

"Get your pants on and go eat something. Clint's probably already outside."

Bruce pulled out one of his older pair of retired uniform pants and slipped into them. They were one of the last prototypes and fit snugger than the final version. Also, they were a medium gray with purple seams and detailing without the Avengers logo. That had come with the next pair. They still had the underwear built in, but there were no pockets or tracking devices or other added tech. Bruce pulled on an old Culver U sweatshirt that had been part of his personal effects that Betty had saved for him and recently returned. He also grabbed a pair of flip-flops. When he transformed, he'd only need the pants on, but he felt sort of immodest walking around bare-chested when it was cold enough for everyone else to start wearing sweaters and jackets. His glasses stayed on the nightstand. He gave Natasha a kiss on the top of her head before he went down the stairs barefoot as quietly as he could since he wasn't sure who was still sleeping. On the next to the bottom step he found a Lego brick, but kept the exclamation to a PG-rated, "Fu-fudge!"

Clint sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee and chuckling. "Sorry, man, those just come with the territory when you have kids. I'll put Coop on brick collection duty later."

"I knew I should have put the footgear on, but they're kinda noisy to walk in."

"Well, it's good training anyway."

"Yah, I hope so," Bruce said with a shrug as he pulled a mug down from one of the cabinets and poured himself some coffee.

"You don't have to get married to have kids," Clint said. It was a conversation they'd had before.

"I know, but I want her to say yes before we go any further along that trajectory."

"She's still not backed off the ask-me-in-a-year thing?" the archer asked.

"No. She won't even give me the details as to why, but she obviously has her reasons. I'll wait till May before I really start to worry about it. Maybe," Bruce concluded.

"Tick, tick, tick," Clint said with a raised eyebrow.

"Look, we're going to have to adopt, so it's not ticking that fast. Besides, we're rather enjoying it just being the two of us. As long as she's happy just being Auntie Nat, I'm happy just being Uncle Bruce for now."

"I should record this and play it back for you later because you're so good at making the bullshit sound logical."

"That's about a third of what I do anyway," Bruce said dryly and took a sip of coffee. "If I start thinking about some things too hard, I'll get depressed or angry, and that's not on the agenda today, okay?"

"Got ya," acknowledged Clint, "but I have to keep checking."

"I appreciate that," said Bruce. "I just want to make her happy."

"Well, she's as happy as I've ever seen her, Bruce, so you're doing something right."

"Thanks," he said. Coming from Clint, that definitely meant something.

Clint stood up and stretched. "Laura has something big planned for lunch, so we're on our own this morning. Cereal okay? We've got toast or I can do eggs in a mug if you want."

"What kind of cereal do you have?"

Clint checked the pantry, "Cheerios with honey and nuts, Wheaties, some kind of Muslix stuff, Mini-Wheats, Oatmeal Squares, Apple Jacks, and I saved the best for last . . . Captain Crunch. We've also got bananas to go on top, so we can pretend any of it is healthy."

"Let me see the Muslix stuff," Bruce said looking over Clint's shoulder. "I get kind of bored with the plain ones."

"Well, I'm going to live on the edge and mix a bunch of them together," Clint decided and handed Bruce a bowl as he lined up the boxes and started layering in his own bowl. Bruce grinned and put some Captain Crunch on the top of his Muslix. "Now you're on the edge, Doc."

"When I was living off the grid in a northern-country-to-be-named-later," Bruce said, "I ate Grapenuts for about six weeks straight—no milk, just water. I will never eat those damn things again. I knew the Big Guy hated them, too, because after I'd Hulked out and turned back, I started puking up pine needles. He'd never eaten anything before, so I knew he'd had enough, too."

Clint had to stop what he was doing because he was laughing so hard. Once he calmed down, he asked, "Why the fuck did you eat like that to begin with?"

Bruce shrugged as he pulled the gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, "I was trying to mortify and suppress my emotions to control myself better, but all it did was clean me out and make me hate the stuff. I hiked out of there two days later and vowed not to repeat that mistake."

They both sat at the table and amicably ate their bowls of cereal. Bruce ate a banana afterward and drank a glass of cool tap water.

"Do you have trouble staying hydrated?" Clint asked.

"Yah, I have to really drink more than I need because it's going to get used up while we're transitioned. He can't drink very much without making me sick, so about all the Big Guy does is rinse out and try not to drink down too much."

"How do you know?"

"Trial and error, and he has a better sense of what I'm doing than I do about what he does. We have a few moments during the transformation to communicate, too."

"Is he pretty close to the surface now?" Clint asked as he studied Bruce.

"Yah, he is. Why?"

"Look at me in the eye." Bruce turned his head and looked at Clint who stared at his eyes. "There is a little green with the normal brown in your pupils. You also move a little differently. Fewer hand movements." Bruce nodded. That made sense. The Big Guy didn't waste motions or make a lot of grand gestures with his hands.

"Did you save me some coffee?" Natasha asked as she came down the stairs and joined them in the kitchen.

"Half a pot enough?" Clint asked.

"That's a good start," she said as she pulled a mug down from the cabinet. Bruce noticed she was wearing her hoodie that road high on her waist when she reached up for the mug.

"We were just talking about the Big Guy," Bruce said as she sat down next to him. "I think he's looking forward to being out again."

"It's a good day for it," she said. "Fog this morning, but it's going to blow off and warm up later."

"I think we talked about that . . ." Bruce said trailing off. He stared at the coffee mug in his hands and his brow was furrowing as he thought. "It's weird. Sometimes I half remember these sort of conversations, and they must have been with Hulk. But I have a hard time picturing him or hearing him. Sometimes I remember what he's told me, but that's about the limit."

"Is it from when you're unconscious?" Clint asked.

"It has to be. Sometimes it just drives me nuts because I'm right on the edge of remembering and it won't come. He's always just a little beyond me. I spent so long trying to get away from him that I suppose this is some sort of cosmic payback now that I want to know him."

Natasha reached over and took his right hand into her left and gave it a reassuring squeeze, "You're getting closer. I know it doesn't look like much of a change from your perspective, but you're going to get past this block when you're ready."

Bruce smiled at her a little sadly, "Patience."

"And keep moving forward," she said, returning his smile with a grin as she took back her hand to fluff and run her fingers through his unruly curls. "Love, you've got to learn to use a comb on this."

"I've got clippers in the barn that would take care of that," Clint offered.

"No," said Natasha, "I adore him curls and all."

"Well, maybe we better get going before one of you changes your mind," Bruce said and leaned over and kissed Natasha's left cheek before he stood up and put his dishes in the washer. He didn't wait for the others as he unlatched the door and slipped out onto the back porch. Bruce hated it when he was whiney like that, so it was clearly time to get up and move. He'd left the flip-flops inside, so the frost on the steps and the grass and gravel almost hissed as his warm feet hit the ground and instantly melted the delicate crystals. Hulk would be warm enough to sublime it into steam. Bruce paced across the yard a few times, stretching his arms above his head and flexing his shoulders and back. His extra warm breath puffed out in clouds when he stood still. The eastern sky was gray and pinkish purple now along the edge, so it wouldn't be long till the sun was up. He breathed deeply and stopped moving, listening for the Other Guy. He was somewhere close. Bruce stripped off the sweatshirt and Natasha was right there to catch it before he dropped it. "Take your time," she said. "See if you can talk to him in the Liminal space for a few minutes. There's no hurry."

The morning sounds and smells of the place brought back childhood memories of walking to meet the bus. He heard birds but no insects since they were too cold and stiff to move before the sun came out to warm them. He sat down on a flat rock at the edge of the gravel. Bruce closed his eyes and did his best to stay relaxed and receptive. It only took a few heartbeats before he felt the warm presence circle around him. He thought of a dragon looping him with its great green coils. Then he felt a small warm fingertip touch the center of his forehead and set off a small shock like a static charge. He must have imagined a child's voice saying, "Boop!" Two more heartbeats and a more adult-sized hand stroked his cheek. "Waiting till you get cleaned up later to shave? That's probably a good call," said what sounded like his voice. Bruce opened his eyes and looked into his own face with striking emerald-dark eyes.

"Adam!" he choked out.

He grinned back at Bruce, "Anything I need to know before we switch?"

"Basic engineering and construction, common sense? Look out for the kids. They're all wound up about seeing you. Laura may want to talk to you close up. I think that's it. Natasha was standing right next me, so be careful. Uh, I kind of got whiney about not being able to talk to you."

"Well, that's sort of sweet, especially after we talked for half the night."

"I know," Bruce sighed. "I do miss you when I can't remember you properly."

Adam looked at Bruce thoughtfully. "Stick around a little closer then," he suggested.

"I'll try, but this is your time, Adam."

"I didn't say I'd let you be in charge," he joked. "Just be there if I need a navigator, okay?"

"Sure. No problem," Bruce said. "You ready?"

"Yah."

"No protecting me this time. I'll handle my share," Bruce said.

That got an eye roll out of Adam, "Yes, Mom."

"Old hen," Bruce retorted with a grin. He closed his eyes and opened himself up for Adam to take what he needed. The burning started in the long bones of his legs and then his arms while the ripping pain started along his spinal column and spread through his muscles as Gamma circulated through the arteries. He wished he had the spoon handle to bite down on for a moment, and he watched as his hands swelled and changed shades till they finally settled on the right amount of green. The pain eased out of him as Adam took over control and absorbed the worst it.

When Adam opened his eyes, he could feel Bruce was close and that was reassuring. He'd concentrated on retaining the skills Bruce had recommended, so he knew he may not be able to communicate as well as last time. The pain was also present, but easing a little with every breath. He stared at his hands and flexed his fingers. Bruce suggested trying an acupressure technique, but it was hard for him to picture and interpret from Bruce's description. Adam looked up and Natasha was standing in front of him. She'd apparently guessed what was going on. "Hey, did Bruce tell you about the acupressure pinch?"

He nodded but held his hands out to show he was unsure. It took some extra effort, but he finally got the right words out, "Please . . . sh-show . . . me, 'Tasha."

Natasha stepped closer and demonstrated how to pinch the right spots with the opposite hand. He looked at her skeptically, but tried it and winced as he found the right spot. He tried it on the other fingers, and it did seem to ease the pain in the front of his head a bit. "Thanks," he said as he offered her a hand to high-five. She stepped forward and touched his palm.

"Sorry about that. I messed up the protocol," she said, feeling a little embarrassed.

"It's okay," Adam said. "It's m-mostly to make the therapy team f-feel better. It k-keeps everyone on toes."

"You're right, but it's my bad," she concluded.

Adam looked around, "Where's Clint?"

"He got a phone call from the neighbor who owns a share in the dump truck. The guy wants to use it, so we'll probably have to change some things around."

Adam sighed. He was on the clock in more ways than one.

"Don't worry. Clint just has to unload the sand, and Laura is going to drive it over. She'll get a ride into town and back with the neighbor's wife. She'll call and give us a heads up so you can be out of sight in plenty of time."

"Sounds com-com-compli-complicated," Adam finally got out.

"It was planned on the fly," Natasha said with an eye roll as if that explained it all. Adam looked at her skeptically. "Hey, not my dump truck. Not my neighbors." Adam let out a rumbling laugh. He knew the saying about circuses and monkeys.

They could hear Clint starting up the dump truck down by the barn. Adam rolled to his feet and noted he'd melted a ten-foot circle around where he'd been sitting. He found that amusing. Natasha noted it too, "You're a regular Good King Wenceslas, Big Guy." He chuckled since he knew that reference, too. He noticed she was in the same boots as yesterday, a pair of comfortable work pants, and she'd pulled Bruce's sweatshirt on over whatever she'd already been wearing. Perhaps she was cold? He felt a guilty twinge from Bruce who thought she probably rushed out after him with only the hoodie t-shirt on.

"Ride?" he asked her.

"Sure," she said without hesitating.

They'd done this before of course. Adam knelt down on his right knee, placed his left elbow on his left knee and cupped his open hand like a stirrup. He bent his head down a bit, and she quickly stepped up his hand, arm, and shoulder and swung her right leg around his neck. It had taken a while to coordinate, but she was finally over the idea that it hurt him if she used his hair or even an ear to hang on. Because his size did vary, she had to be ready to adjust, too. Today, Adam was closer to ten than eight feet because of what they had planned, so Natasha found it quite convenient to run her hands through his hair and rest her head on top of his. She wasn't about to deny that his excess warmth was a big plus this morning. She sighed in comfort, and he gave a low rumbling chuckle of satisfaction.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yah, let's go see what Clint is up to," she said. "I may need to move something."

Adam walked around the back of the house, and they could see that was probably the case. Even while being extra careful because of Nat, he quickly covered the distance and knelt so she could climb down. Clint called out of the cab window, "Hey, Big Guy. Good to see you. I need to put this beside the house. Right where it's a nice big eyesore and temptation for the kids."

"What do you want us to do?" Natasha asked.

"If you don't mind, it would be helpful if you made sure the back is cleared out," he said.

Adam nodded, "Sure." He and Natasha followed the truck on foot as Clint backed it down the gravel drive past the other vehicles and finally did a two-point turn to pull it into the yard beside the house. Laura was waiting for them on the porch with Nate on her hip while the other two kids were plastered to the screen door and pointing excitedly at Adam.

"Looks like you have a fan club, Big Guy," Natasha told him with a pleased look.

He puffed out a deep breath, "I better not get too much closer. It's not that I don't like people, but . . . you know."

"I know what?" she said, not about to make this easy.

"It's not safe. I might hurt someone."

"Look, they are separated from you by the porch and a screen door. If you stay on the gravel, that's fifteen yards. They're not going to touch you randomly, but they'll be close enough not to romanticize or mythologize you either."

"They're not predictable," he said. That was sort of his last salvo before just being stubborn about it.

"Let Clint lay down the law. These two are well behaved. It's going to be fine."

"Only if it's okay with Clint and Mrs. Barton," he said.

"Her name is Laura."

Adam nodded. His stomach was seriously starting to knot up. He felt large and clumsy and hard to look at. He just knew he was going to screw this up with terrible consequences. Bruce started to sooth him, wrapping him in a sense of calm. These are friends. They already like you. They know this is new and unnerving, so just take things one step at a time.

Clint had maneuvered the truck to the spot where Laura wanted the sand and parked it while he left the engine running. Adam reached behind the cab and pulled out the clawed scoop he'd used the previous day, so it didn't fall out when the bed tilted to dump the load. The archer jumped out of the cab and came around the far side of the vehicle's bed to talk to Adam on the side away from the house. "Hey, how are you feeling today, man?"

"I'm okay. Why?"

"If it wouldn't make you too uncomfortable, could you come say hello to Laura and the kids. It'll only take a minute. Nat and I will be right there."

"You're okay with this?" Adam asked. "I hurt people."

Clint chuckled and shook his head. "Of the three of us here, who do you think has the least blood in their ledger? I know for a fact from the footage and what I've observed that even at your most hyped up worst—short of possession—you avoid hurting civilians to the last man, woman, and child. If I didn't trust you within ten yards of my family, Bruce would not be sleeping under my roof. Now, come on and get the fun over with, so we can get some work done."

Adam could have argued further, but that might set things in motion no one wanted to see happen. Instead, he set the scoop down and followed Clint around the truck and up to the edge of the gravel drive. He felt completely self conscious as they watched the frost sublime into vapor in a growing circle around him, but Natasha stood beside him and she was positively beaming. "Do you want to follow therapy protocol?" she asked. "That should help teach the kids to respect your personal space."

"Yah. Good idea," he said, his breath puffing out in cloud. Natasha must have prepped Laura ahead of time because she waited till he was ready. He sat down and held up his hand with the palm out like he did at the start of a therapy session in the gym back home in the tower. Laura handed Nate off to Natasha and walked down the steps to him. She had on corduroy leggings and a big soft-looking sweater in fall colors. To her credit, she didn't rush or hesitate as she stepped close enough to touch hands. "Hi, I'm Laura. Should I call you Hulk?"

"Hulk is fine. Nice to meet you." He tried to smile without overdoing it.

"I've wanted to meet you for a long time, so I could thank you. Clint and Nat both owe you their lives. I don't know what we'd do if anything happened to them. You may not agree, but I feel better when you're on a mission with them because I know you all have each others' backs."

Adam relaxed a bit as he listened to her. He'd been half expecting something like he'd experienced during the worst of the Reconciliation sessions, but Laura wasn't staring at him fearfully or freaking out. She was talking to him like a regular person in a friendly way. "You're welcome," Adam said, not sure what else to say. Feeling a little lost, he looked over at Natasha and the baby. She smiled encouragingly. He turned back to Laura and tried some of his standard fallback lines. "Thank you for having me here. I like your farm. Bruce likes being here with everyone. Um, I do, too."

Laura laughed. "That's okay. You don't need to worry about chitchat. We're really glad to have you here and helping out with some difficult tasks."

"Thank me afterward. I may still break something," Adam said and tilted his head and cocked his eyebrow with a small smile.

Clint had joined Natasha on the porch, and he covered his mouth to hide his grin. Natasha elbowed him, "He's doing great. Don't spoil this."

"He flirts like Banner," the archer said under his breath.

"I've seen you do the exact same thing with less charm than either of them."

Clint shrugged. It was probably true. He slipped back to talk to Cooper and Lila. He went over the protocol with them again and made them each repeat back the steps and what they could and couldn't do.

Laura was explaining to Adam what she did when she interpreted x-rays for hospitals and physicians groups. They'd already covered how she and Clint met when she worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. "I get files to analyze from throughout the system, but most are from the eastern half of the country. Occasionally, I get asked to do second opinions from as far away as Europe or Japan, but that's pretty rare. I would really love to work with you guys' scans when the Agreements are in the rearview mirror. I've got some ideas for getting around your tissue density issues."

Adam looked quite enthralled, "I'd really like that. Bruce spends a lot of downtime thinking about how to get past that problem."

"Lord, she's managed to bring out the geek in the Hulk," Clint whispered to Natasha.

"You have a very talented wife, so you shouldn't be that surprised when she finds ways to connect with people no one can anticipate," Natasha quipped. Her namesake was beginning to get fussy, so it wasn't long before Laura reached a good point to rest the conversation.

"Are you feeling up to meeting Cooper and Lila?" she asked Adam.

"All right, if you're okay with it, I am," he said. Laura patted Adam's hand and stepped back.

"Of course I am," she affirmed. "Coop, come here. This is a friend I'd like you to meet." Coop looked like he wanted to bounce off the porch with excitement, but he made himself slow down to a fast walk. Adam half smiled and held up his hand. The boy planted both of his hands in a double high-five in the middle of his large green palm.

"Hi, I'm Cooper Francis Barton. You're the Hulk!" the boy crowed with enthusiasm.

"Hello, Cooper Francis Barton," Adam said, trying to sound solemn. "It's nice to meet you."

Coop crossed his arms over his chest. "I have some questions, Sir."

"Okay," Adam said, wondering what sort of interrogation he was in for now. Laura was standing behind her son, and she raised both eyebrows and looked just as puzzled as Adam.

"Are you the strongest?" the boy asked.

Without hesitation, Adam replied, "Yes."

"How strong are you?" Cooper demanded.

"Pretty strong." Adam looked around. "I can lift the dump truck with one hand, but I probably shouldn't do that right now. Do you need something lifted, Cooper Francis Barton?"

"No. I just wondered," he replied a little sheepishly.

"Got any other questions for me?" Adam asked with a smile beginning to show.

"Yah, why are you green?" he asked.

"That's easy. Because the Gamma Radiation I absorbed emits light waves that register on the green part of the light spectrum." Bruce knew that one was coming.

"Do you like green?" Coop asked.

"It's okay. I like purple and blue, too," Adam admitted.

"How tall are you?"

This one got a little tricky. "It depends," Adam explained. "Today I'm probably over nine feet tall, but usually I'm around eight and a half feet. If I get mad, I can get bigger and stronger, but I'd rather not do that."

Cooper nodded in understanding. "What do you like to eat?"

"I like ice cream, peanut butter, and apples. I don't eat very much because it can make Bruce sick."

"Where does Uncle Bruce go while you're here?" the boy asked.

This one Adam had to think about. "He's in here," he said tapping his temple, "and he's in here," he said as he placed his right hand over his heart. "I can feel him, and I sometimes understand him like he can me when I'm inside and he's out. He's safe inside till he comes back out. Don't worry, I take care of him."

"What do you do when you're inside?"

Adam laughed, "I imagine places that Bruce has been or that he reads about. I think about problems and try to solve them. When he's asleep, sometimes I talk to Bruce. Sometimes I play. It's probably a lot like when you dream."

Laura finally intervened, "Cooper, this is the last one."

The boy looked at Adam, "What do you dream about?"

Adam sighed, "Lots of things. I dream about my family and friends. I dream about birds. I dream I'm in movies. I dream about fighting tanks and robots and really big bees. Sometimes I dream I'm a boy like you."

Cooper looked like he had more questions, but Laura's foot was down. "Coop, go get your sister. It's her turn now." As her son headed back into the house, Laura turned to Adam. "I'm sorry. I had no idea he wanted to interrogate you with so many questions."

"It's okay. I don't mind. This gives me practice, and those were good questions," Adam reassured her.

Cooper escorted his little sister across the porch and down the steps to their mother. Lila was grinning at Adam, but she still seemed to be in awe of him. The little girl slipped her hand in her mother's, and Laura led her forward a few steps. "Lila, would you like to meet a friend?" The little girl nodded. Adam knew she'd glommed onto Bruce who in turned adored her, so Adam hoped she'd be okay with him and not think he was taking away her friend. He held up his hand at her level, and she stepped forward and gave him a two-handed high-five like her brother except much more carefully as she felt his palm for a moment.

"Hi," Adam said as gently as he could. "My name is Hulk. What's your name?"

"I'm Lila Louise Barton," she said. "Do you have a middle name?"

Adam decided it was best to be truthful. "Can you keep a secret?" he whispered. "My full name is Adam 'Hulk' Banner. Not even Auntie Nat knows that."

"I like your name," Lila said with a conspiratorial smile. "I won't tell. Are you Uncle Bruce's brother?"

"Yes, you could say that. I'm probably Bruce's twin."

"You must be the kind that don't look alike." Everyone listening laughed at that observation.

"Right, fraternal twins," he said with a gentle smile.

"You both have pretty brown eyes and a freckle on your bottom lip. Uncle Bruce said it's because he likes chocolate. I like chocolate. Do you like chocolate?"

"I like chocolate, too," Adam confirmed.

She stepped in a little closer and touched the back of his hand. "You smell like apples," she told Adam, "and you're warm like Uncle Bruce. Do you wear glasses, too?"

"No, I don't need them. Do you have glasses?"

"No, just sun glasses. Auntie Nat says they make me look mysterious." She grinned and stretched her arms over her head. "Do you like to garden? Dad said you're going to help Mom with the garden."

"I like working with the dirt," said Adam. "Do you help your mom with the gardening?"

"I like to dig where she tells me to, but I hate weeding," Lila confessed to him. "I want to see how you and Dad get the stumps out."

"Now that's up to your mom and dad, but I'll put in a good word for you," Adam said with a grin.

"Okay, kiddo," Laura said, "we need to let Hulk and Dad get to work." Before Laura could get in front of her, Lila hugged Adam's right forearm. He waved Laura off since he really didn't mind Lila touching him. Adam very carefully stroked her hair with his left hand.

It was a subtle thing, but he felt her heartbeat, and his synced up to match hers. Lila looked up at him. She'd felt something, too. He'd almost forgotten about it, but this had happened when he and Natasha began to work together. It helped him home in on her and focus more quickly on what they were doing—usually the lullaby—but that seemed to be all it was. He'd equated it to having someone on speed dial, but maybe it was something more. "I'll see you later, Lila Lou."

She giggled, "Uncle Bruce calls me that. He says, 'I'll miss you, Lila Lou'."

"Don't worry, we're both right here," Adam reassured her. She let him go and Laura escorted her back up on the porch.

"What's the updated plan?" Natasha asked.

"Step one," Clint said, "Laura, do you want me to dump this in one big pile or spread it out?"

"Spread it out if you can. It's so wet you may not be able to get it to spread much," Laura said as she retrieved Nate.

"Aye-aye," Clint said. "We'll see what we can do."

What they ended up with was a rough line of sand peaks in the middle of the yard. The wettest part was at the bottom, and it came out in a Hulk-sized clump that splattered. Adam cleaned out the rest by hand, so he was covered from the knees down. Natasha wasn't pristine, but she knew an avoidable mess when she saw it. "Let's wait till this has had a chance to dry out in the sun before trying to spread it," she suggested.

The guys had no problem with that, so Clint turned the truck around and parked it in the gravel drive for Laura to deliver to the neighbor. The sun was now over the horizon, so the temperature was finally on the rise and the foggy dampness was beginning to abate. They moved on to the stumps next. There were several of them in what had been an old fencerow down by the corner of the field where the gravel drive met the blacktop. The largest were from ash trees that had succumbed to the emerald ash-borer. Adam sized them up, "You said a few, but I definitely count ten and two of those were trees I could climb."

Clint shrugged, "At least some of them are half rotten."

"I need something like a crowbar, but my size. Any chance you'd have an I-beam or something similar laying around?" Adam asked.

"Funny thing you should ask that. The outbuilding we're taking down has something, which might work," Clint said.

The outbuilding was a smaller structure with cinderblock walls and a corrugated metal roof. There were no widows visible. It stood out from older wooden structures and was situated so that it was behind another building and couldn't be seen easily from the house or road. "What was this used for?" Natasha asked. "It's too small for a garage. Was it an office or work shop or something?"

"That is the mystery," Clint said he led them around to the far side where it became apparent why it needed to come down. The longer sidewall had been broken out from the inside, and the place was blackened by a fire and perhaps an explosion. "The kids call it the 'scary house', but Laura and I call it an eyesore. It's taken two lightening hits since we've lived here, so we'd like to see it come down before anybody gets hurt or one of the other buildings gets damaged."

Adam ducked his head and looked in from the ragged opening. "Bingo, I can use these steel beams. Why don't you two stand back around the corner of the barn?" He knocked a few more of the cinderblocks out of his way and stepped inside. The roof was an open construction of metal beams and trusses, so all he had to do was find the brackets where the roof attached to the side supports. He grinned as he used his fist to pulverize the reinforced blocks and joints the brackets attached to and worked his way around the walls. Adam always found the smashing part fun, even when it required some precision. Once he was done and satisfied the roof's structure was detached, he yelled to his friends, "Stay back, I'm going to put the metal in the field." With that he grabbed the main support beams along the roof's spine and jumped, flipping the roof into the open space away from the other buildings. It landed with a spectacularly satisfying crash of crumpling metal, and Adam came down a few yards beyond it like a cat on all fours. Some days he loved his "job."

Clint and Natasha emerged from sheltering around the corner of the barn to admire the destruction. "I was wondering how we were going to get that off," Clint said as he nodded his head with a satisfied look. When the dump truck made it back, they could load up the mess and take it in for scrap.

Adam started sorting through the wreckage to find a makeshift lever. He soon found a ten-foot section of steel that he liberated by pinching off the attaching bolts. He didn't even have to use his teeth. "Do you want this rubble picked up now or later?" he asked Clint.

"Later is fine. We should have the truck back, and we'll take a load to the scrap yard," he said.

Natasha had been rather quiet, and Adam noticed she was scanning the debris with her Stark-Phone. She shook her head and returned to the remaining shell of the building to look around. "I know you love a mystery," Clint said to her, "but I think we'll go work on the stumps now."

"Go ahead," she said, busy studying the inside of the remaining walls. "I'll go consult with Laura and see if she's ready to go. I'll be keeping an eye on the kids."

Adam slung the length of steel over his shoulders like a squared-off bat. "Now all I need is some kind of fulcrum. Any large rocks down there?"

"You know, I may have just the thing," Clint said motioning for Adam to follow him. At the edge of the trees was a group of retired farm equipment that had been left to rust. Adam recognized most of the pieces as early combines, rakes, and an ancient hay baler, but Clint led him to a rusted metal axle with wheels about three feet tall.

Adam chuckled, "That is a very old railcar truck or a part of one."

"I don't know where the rest of the boxcar is, but this axle set has been here much longer than we've owned the place."

"It's perfect. Scavenger hunt over," said Adam. He took the metal bar and ran the end under the axle. "Stand back." He used one hand to lift the bar and pry the wheel rims out of eight inches of soil, which they'd sunk into over the years. Luckily, the soil was soft and first one side pulled free and then the other as Adam adjusted the bar. He probably could have just done a weightlifter's clean and jerk move, but he wanted to get a feel for the bar as a tool.

Clint kicked some of the dirt off the rims. "This is going to be fun to roll all the way down there."

Adam shook his head. "Who says we're going to roll it? I'd rather send it airmail."

"Oh, no, no! That thing will bounce if you throw it," the archer cautioned.

"I wasn't going to throw it for just that reason. I'll jump there with it. Want a ride?" Adam asked.

"No, definitely no thank you to the ride. I'll just walk down."

"All right," Adam said with a grin. "Suit yourself." With that he scooped up both metal pieces and launched himself into the air as if it were the standing broad jump. To tell the truth, he probably could have kicked the thing there, too, but he didn't feel the need to showoff.

While Clint was jogging across the field, Adam set the metal pieces down and began testing the stumps. The smaller ones he pulled out with his bare hands. They were mostly rooted straight down, so all he had to do was twist and pull them like weeds. The bigger ones were hardwoods with branching roots. Whoever had cut the trees down had only left about a foot of trunk above the ground, so Adam had trouble getting a handhold on them. Now it occurred to him he needed the scoop, so he took another leap back toward the house to retrieve it. Natasha and Laura were coming out of the house, so he waved and Natasha called him over. Laura was carrying her purse, so she was probably ready to go drop off the truck. "Hey," Natasha called, "just a heads-up. I'm going to have the kids working on scattering the pile after they finish breakfast."

"They both have indoor things they can do as well," Laura reminded them as she climbed into the truck's cab. Coop needs to bring out the trash and the recycling, too. Snacks are in the fridge."

"Go already," Natasha told her. The truck was soon rolling down the drive, and Adam gathered up the scoop.

"We'll be working on the stumps," he said.

"Hey, Big Guy, you did a great job with the civilians," she told him.

Adam smiled and blushed a little underneath the green, "Good. I better go, 'Tasha. Clint is already down there." He tucked the scoop under his arm and leapt. Clint saw him coming and stayed well clear as Adam landed.

"Four out and six to go," Clint said as he surveyed what he'd missed.

Adam tested each of the remaining stumps with his foot. "No difference. They're all pretty solid."

"They're all mature ash trees, so they're plenty deep. Eany, meany, miney, moe. Kick a tree stump with your toe?" Clint offered.

Adam snorted and started digging around the nearest one at the end of the line. It took several minutes to clear enough dirt and rock away to get under it, but once he had a good handhold, Adam worked it loose and used the lever to pop it free of the last few stubborn roots. Clint had wrestled the smaller stumps together, so Adam tossed the one he'd just liberated on the pile. "Whose idea was it to cut the trunks so close to the ground?" Adam asked.

Clint sighed, "That would be Allen."

"Bruce can't wait to meet this guy, but I can," Adam noted. "No offence."

"He means well," Clint said apologetically, "and in this case, I couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth since he did it as a surprise. Plus, he owns the big chainsaw."

Adam looked backed toward the house. Natasha had the older children collecting buckets of sand and using a wagon to haul them to the far corners of the flower and garden beds. She was checking Nate who was in a playpen on the porch. All looked well, so he started in on the second stump. This time he took a more focused approach and just dug out enough for handholds. It had been a while since he'd really physically pushed himself. Logan had pushed him, but that was different, more like a mental testing than a physical one. Adam looked at his hands. They were large and grotesque, but they were above all strong and good for work like this. This time he dug in and put his shoulders, back, and legs into it. He felt some of the roots start to give and that meant there was enough room for him to use the bar and axle. Two good slams down on the bar and only four stumps remained in the ground. Now that he'd refined his technique, it didn't take long to get the last four, which were on the more rotted side, separated from their roots.

He and Clint were about to toss the last chunks on the pile when they heard Cooper and Natasha yelling. Adam didn't see Lila and his heart sank. The last time he'd looked she'd been at the base of the largest pile digging, but out of harm's way. Clint started to run toward the house. Adam grabbed the scoop with his left hand, and in one stride he wrapped his right arm around Clint's waist and leapt. Coop was waving his arms to direct them as they landed, so Clint and Adam scrambled around the end of the pile. Lila had apparently been digging out a crescent shaped spot at the base of the steepest part of the pile on the side away from the house and field. When the wet sand had collapsed it had buried her to almost the chest, but more was flowing down by the moment from the dryer top of the mound.

Natasha had used her body like a dam between Lila and the flow to slow the sand down, but it was going to be a losing battle if they didn't get them both out of there quickly. "You keep their heads above the sand," Adam told Clint. Bruce had seen something like this happen in granaries when people had been swallowed up and smothered in corn or wheat. Adam saw what he needed on the porch and grabbed the large new recycling barrel, emptied the contents and bit off the base end so he had a tube wide and deep enough to protect both Lila and Nat's heads from being covered. Clint understood what he was doing and propped Natasha's shoulders up, so they could get the barrel in place.

"Cooper, go get two shovels," Clint told his son. With the barrel keeping the sand at bay, the next most important thing was to get the weight off Lila, who was in real danger of being crushed. Adam didn't bother using the scoop and instead waded into the pile with his massive arms and legs, shoving it away from his friends as Clint kept the barrel anchored and Cooper did his best to direct some of the flowing sand to the side. Natasha managed to work her arms free and attempted to clear the sand off the little girl's torso from inside the barrel with Clint's help.

"Can you both breathe?" Adam asked as he worked on dispersing the mound.

"I'm scared," Lila said, "and my . . . chest hurts, and . . . it's cold." Clint and Natasha dug even more frantically to get any room at all for the little girl's lungs to breath.

"Tasha?" Adam demanded.

"I can breathe fine," Natasha reported, but this stuff is like cement." The deeper Adam went on the outside of the barrel, the muckier things got, yet within a few minutes he had everything moved away or stabilized enough to remove the barrel and get Nat and Lila out. Clint soon had his daughter extricated from the column of sand. Dirt-covered and tired of being brave, Lila collapsed in Clint's arms, and they sat there and held each other.

Adam dug carefully at the column with his hands. He didn't have to think about the consequences of failure here. Natasha had been pulling the sand off Lila while the only place to put it was on top of herself. He cleared the muck off Natasha's torso as gently as possible, so she was finally able to sit up, and they slowly freed her legs. Only then did he pause, "Are you all right?"

Natasha coughed a bit, "I should be okay. We both got a little squeezed, but I don't think any got into our lungs." He could feel Bruce relax a bit at that news. They sat there in the sandy mess and looked at each other. She started laughing first. "What doesn't kill you, still makes one heck of a mess," she said. Adam rolled his eyes. She leaned against his left arm, and he lifted her into his lap—very much against protocol—and wrapped his arms around her to make sure she warmed up.

"Don't scare me like that again," he told her.

"I'll try not to," she replied, patting his arm. Once she finally warmed up, Natasha stood up and shook some of the mess off.

While she went to check on Nate who had apparently slept through the whole incident, Adam decided to take care of the dangerous outbuilding he'd already half wrecked earlier before the kids got curious about it. He also needed to use some of his energy spike or he'd be roaring at groundhogs and picking fights or something. With a few well-placed kicks the block walls were quickly down, and he went ahead and broke up the concrete by jumping on it and landing several double-fisted blows. The whole pile of rubble and mangled steel needed to be picked up and hauled away or buried, but until the truck was available, having it disassembled and flattened would have to do.

Satisfied his jobs were done for now, Adam walked back toward the house. It wasn't even noon yet, but he felt like he'd put in a pretty full day. Doing so much talking was enough to knock him on his big green butt unless he called up Gamma reserves with his temper or other strong emotions not normally conducive to having a civil conversation. Clint was looking relieved and sitting on the porch with the older two kids who were staying close to him as he parsed out the details of what led to the emergency. Apparently, the backside of the sand mounds had been more stable-looking (make that tempting), and they'd both disobeyed Nat when they went back to the pile while she changed Nate's diaper in the house. Apologies to Natasha had already been made and accepted.

Adam carefully sat down on the front steps as unobtrusively as a large jade giant could. Clint set the two siblings to work using a broom to knock the worst of the sand off themselves before they were to go inside and get cleaned up. Other consequences would be doled out after Laura made it back, which wouldn't be too much longer.

"Are we done for now?" Adam asked.

"Yes," answered Clint with a sigh. "Let's just get cleaned up and play Mario Kart or something. I have a feeling we won't be competing for time on it with the kids for a good while."

"Maybe Bruce will do that with you. I'm feeling pretty wiped out," Adam said with a patient smile.

"Yah, right you are," Clint chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry."

Natasha had moved Nate inside to finish his nap, so now she came back out to see how things were going. Just looking at the sag of Adam's shoulders told her he needed to go. She walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Ready to call it a day?"

"Yah," he said. He could transform back on his own, but there was something both intimate and comforting about the ritual. He stood up and turned to face her then held up his hand and mirrored her gestures. She touched his pulse points, and he sighed and sank to his knees. Like that, Bruce's presence was there enfolding him and easing him safely toward home. Natasha grabbed his shoulders and guided his heavy but shrinking body to the ground as gently as possible. He'd forgotten the kids were watching and heard Lila's scared voice asking. "Is he okay, Daddy? Hulk looks like he's hurt."

Adam was too far into the transition to answer and Bruce was anxious to be out, so Adam let himself transform as quickly as he could stand. He imagined falling onto the guest bed in Bruce and Natasha's apartment and handed both the control and the pain over to his sibling as smoothly as he could.

Bruce gasped as bone and muscle tightened, compressed, and reformed as he shrank, curling into a fetal position. When the pain eased, he rolled onto his back as sweat and heat poured off him, and Natasha was there with a towel, since he was covered in mud, and a blanket for later. The green receded into his veins as Lila pulled away from her father who had held her back and knelt down by Bruce who was now pushing himself to a sitting position. "Are you okay, Uncle Bruce? Is Adam okay?" she whispered.

He smiled at her, completely relieved that she had bounced back so quickly. "Yes, he said to tell you he's okay, Lila Lou. He's really tired, so he's going to sleep for a good while. You'll have to tell me what you did to wear him out."

"We talked. He's really nice to talk to. Cooper had more questions than I did, but he answered them all."

"That's really neat that he talked to you," Bruce told her. "I hoped that he would and you'd be good friends. That makes me really happy."

She grinned and did an exaggerated conspiratorial wink as Clint ushered her inside to get cleaned up. Bruce gave a sigh of relief that things had gone well with the kids and nothing worse had happened. He scrubbed his hand down his face and shook his head to be rid of the last cobwebs.

Natasha gave Bruce a hand and he stood up without a problem. Adam had taken the brunt of the energy deficit on the mental side of things, so Bruce got the leftover Gamma-generated energy that was making his skin prickle like several cups of coffee too many and other parts of him were starting to respond as well with primal demands. Natasha had kept ahold of his hand and ran her thumb in small circles along the inside of his wrist over the pulse point. She understood exactly what was happening to Bruce. Without a word, she led him up the steps and around the corner to the mudroom just off the porch. Clint had the kids upstairs getting cleaned up, so they had a little time and space to themselves here among the coats and baggage.

"I think some payback for this morning might be in order," Bruce told her as he shut the door. He pressed Natasha back against the wall and took both of her wrists in his hands to hold her arms above her head.

Natasha was a little surprised, but she went with it. They were going to have to be very quiet. "I've been really bad," she whispered.

"No, you've been really, _really_ good," he countered, rubbing his cheek against hers, nuzzling, and then kissing the side of her neck. They were both still covered in mud and sand in odd spots. He pushed his body against hers and she had no doubt where this was going. He shifted both of her wrists to his left hand and slid the right hand between their bodies then down to her waistband, which for once was loose enough for him to run his hand down and start kneading her crotch through her panties. "That's my girl. You're already wet for me, aren't you," he said, smiling at her. "We both know what's going to happen. The only questions are where and how many times."

"Take me here and now," she whispered huskily. "I don't care how covered in dirt and mud we are. I want you, Lover."

He released her wrists and sank down on his knees on the tiled floor, unfastening and pulling down her pants and panties, so she could kick them off with her boots. He draped her right leg over his shoulder and rubbed his face against her stomach before working his way down. She moaned and buried her fingers in his hair. "Make me come, Bruce," she purred. He parted her nether lips with his fingers and kissed her sloppily with his tongue and lips, working her up until she was a whimpering mess in record time. "Please, Bruce, fuck me," she pleaded.

"Do you want me?" he asked pulling up and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Please, Bruce, all of you!" she pleaded.

He gently removed her leg from his shoulder and stood up, and she stripped off his tight gray pants and let them drop to the floor. He sighed with relief to be free of their constrictions. His cock was thick and almost painfully hard, so she touched him gently, stroking as he breathed in sharply. He surprised her by embracing her and picking her up, but she quickly wrapped her legs around him and he pressed her back up against the wall. Bruce kissed her on the mouth, and she could taste the tang of her fluids still on his lips. Now it was her turn to gasp as he thrust into her. "Is that enough of me?" he asked.

"I want all of you," she whispered, "but don't you want to put on a condom?"

He shook his head. "Not today. I'm trying to get over things. For once, I'll trust the readings."

She hugged him close. "Don't hold back then."

He adjusted his hold lower on her hips and pressed her against the wainscot as he drove into her again and again. She tried not to cry out as he brought her closer to the edge. He covered her mouth with his and kissed her, but soon they were both breathing too hard to lock lips completely. The sex wasn't so much rough as it was they both wanted it right then and there.

"I love you, Natasha," he whispered in her ear as he felt her getting ready to come. Her vaginal walls clamped down hard on him as she shuddered. He continued thrusting until he orgasmed in a rolling series of releases that matched hers. He felt the flush of Liminality he'd been expecting. Natasha clung to him and he moved his hands up to stroke her back. He never knew exactly what would happen when he tapped into Hulk's territory, but it always felt intense and this time it was extremely pleasurable.

"Thank you," she whispered back.

"You, too," he told her, holding her tightly. Little shocks were still crawling down his spine and there was a pleasant humming at his core.

"Green is your color today," she said, looking into his eyes.

Natasha's phone somewhere on the floor buzzed with a text alert. They both knew that probably meant Laura was on the way home.

They carefully separated and pulled clothes back on for the trip upstairs. Natasha showed Bruce the text from Clint: "I don't know what u r doing where, but L will be here in 15 min."

"I guess we better get cleaned up," Bruce said with a half smile.

"Before Dad tells Mom on us," Natasha giggled.

Bruce smiled, "He's a good dad. I'll trust his judgment."

She laughed and threw his Culver U sweatshirt at him. "You could do worse as a role model, Doc."

"I agree. You picked a good family, Nat. Thanks for bringing me along." At that she gave him a hug.

"Be patient with me, okay?" she said. "I promise. We may not have the white house and the picket fence in the suburbs or the cabin in the woods, but we're going to have each other."

"Be careful what you wish for," he said before he could stop himself. God, he could be so stupid and self-destructive.

"Hush," she said, touching her finger to his lips. "You know I keep my promises, and I've never given up on you or Hulk."

"I know," he said nodding. He so wanted to take those words back. "I'm just not used to things going right. How often in a story does the monster find love and keep it?"

"In this story, there are no monsters, just people who love each other no mater how bent and broken we are."

He held her close, taking in the realness and immediacy of the smells and textures of their own bodies. Natasha was so beautiful and so good to him. "Way back at the celebration party, before Ultron put in his first appearance, Steve told me you and I both deserved a win. I was in such shock that you'd be interested in someone as 'bent and broken' as me, but I wanted you, I wanted us. I've never stopped wanting there to be an US. I just wanted to make sure I'm really a win for you."

"Oh, Doc," she reached up and brushed the sweat-damp curls back from his face, looking him in those dark brown eyes she loved so much. "People like to credit me with breaking hearts and twisting people around my little finger because sexuality is a kind of power, so I let them do it because in the spy game and office politics, it pays to keep people guessing. I have played people as part of the job, which has cost me along the way, but never doubt that when I saw you and knew you, Bruce, you quit being just a mark or a folder full of reports. I recognized so many good and beautiful things about you that I didn't want to damage or destroy—characteristics that I hoped one day to see in myself. How could being with you not be a win? I know what I want, and I know whom I love, and that's you, Bruce. I want US with all my heart, and I'm settling on nothing less than all of you."

She stroked the rough stubble along his jaw and down to his chin as Bruce smiled at her. It suddenly occurred to Natasha why he so loved for her to mark him though it never lasted more than a handful of hours. It reassured him he was her "win," that he was indeed worthy in her eyes. She thought seriously about marking him right then and there on the side of his neck or offering to put a ring on _his_ finger, but she wanted something much more personal and if possible permanent.

"Come with me. I have an idea and maybe a surprise," she said. They left their footwear in the mudroom, gathered the rest of their things, and headed upstairs to shower and clean up. Natasha kissed Bruce and sent him in to shower and shave first, while she went down to greet Laura and ask a favor.

((o))

It took some extra effort to get clean, but when Bruce stepped out of the shower, he could hear someone talking to Natasha in the guestroom and then there was the moving of boxes in its adjoining closet. He was tempted to peek, but she had threatened him with "dire" consequences if he spoiled anything. Luckily, he had his shave kit to keep him busy for a few more minutes. By the time he'd finished and pulled on his underwear and jeans, he didn't hear any further activity in the bedroom, so he'd knocked quietly on the door. "All clear?" Bruce asked.

"Come on out. We're ready," Natasha said.

Bruce opened the door without knowing what to expect. Laura was there grinning conspiratorially, and she and Natasha had the crafting table in the corner cleared off except for a small toaster-sized machine he couldn't immediately identify, some bottles of dark liquid, what looked like quill nibs, and some medical supplies he did recognize as standard disinfectants. "Okay, do I dare ask what the machine is for?"

Laura chuckled, "One of the skills I picked up before S.H.I.E.L.D. hired me was doing simple medical tattoos. I mostly did lettering for diabetes patients or people with severe allergies who didn't want to wear the medical alert jewelry. I did a few 'Do Not Revive' ones for older patients, too. However, I have done some more aesthetic things, mostly line drawings with one or two colors of ink and calligraphy. With your healing factor, I'm not sure how permanent something would be, but if you're interested, we could give it a try. Start small and see if it lasts the day?"

"Really? You would try that with my condition? Wouldn't my 'contamination' mess up the equipment?" he worried.

"We have an autoclave in the basement, which you know is the gold standard in doctor's offices and hospitals for cleaning medical equipment," Laura explained. "I think we can handle any 'contamination' you have to dish out, Bruce."

He looked over at Natasha with a raised eyebrow, "This is your idea. Did you have something in mind?"

"How about ' _Mine_ '?" she teased.

He snorted, "If that's what you want . . ."

"Oh, no. How do you feel about a symbol or an initial? You know, like Laura said, keep it small to see if it works or not," Natasha suggested. She handed him a piece of paper with a few designs Laura must have just sketched.

"How about the hourglass?" he asked.

"Ah, yes, Natasha's Black Widow mark. That's pretty easy," Laura surmised. "Now, where do you want it?"

Bruce had initially thought of getting it over his heart, but he wanted to be able to see it whenever he felt like it. He took off his watch. "Here," he pointed to the paler circle of skin that usually didn't see daylight on the back of his left wrist. "Will this work?"

"It's going to sting a little more than some spots, but definitely less than others. Good choice," Laura said with a hint of relief. "Thanks for not going below the navel. Have a seat, Bruce, while Nat gets cleaned up and quits tracking sand all over the place." Natasha rolled her eyes and grabbed her fresh clothes before retreating to the bathroom. Laura took a deep breath as Bruce sat down at the desk chair where she directed him. "Now, are you sure you want to do this? It may very well be permanent like it's supposed to be. I have a marker here if you want to just try it out and see if it's really what you want."

"No, I've thought about something like this for a long time, but I just didn't believe it would work on me," he said.

"Well, it may not. What I do is place the pigment into your skin's dermis below the outer layer. Then I damage the skin with the needles part to disperse the pigment to make the design. Your immune system's phagocytes react to the foreign substance and surround it. As things heal, granulation tissues form to trap the pigment, and then over time are replaced by the collagen growth that stabilizes the pigments in the layer of skin just below the dermis. In other words, it's going to sting, bleed, and be red and irritated while it heals up. The top layer of skin will flake off like a scab, but the rest should stay put and heal up over time. Still game?"

"Yes, I am. I really do want it. I want her mark on me," he said. The brunette continued to scrutinize him. "Please, Laura," he asked as sincerely as he knew how. "I really do want this."

"All right. I just don't want you having regrets later. Would you like black, red, or some other color? Personally, I think green would be interesting because it might not be visible when you're Hulk," she theorized.

Bruce chuckled at that. "Let's do black. Maybe if I like the first one I'll get a collection and branch out," he joked. She had sketched two sizes of the hourglass design and he picked the one smaller than his thumbnail that would be easily hidden under his watch.

Laura put on gloves and laid out the tools she needed before she sterilized the area on his skin. "Now, don't make me laugh while I have the machine on," she said, "or you may get more than an hourglass." He noted that she wore a surgical mask and safety goggles, which made him feel a little more at ease since his blood would be involved.

He was good at staying silent and not flinching, so the process was over much quicker than Bruce had imagined. There was some blood as she repeated the second step, but Laura was very efficient at wiping it away and disposing of it in a biohazard container. The skin on his wrist had immediately reddened and faded and was already scabbing over as she put things away. "My gosh, that was fast," she said, applying some ointment to keep the area moist and encourage healing. "We may know if it's going to take in an hour or so. You can touch it, but don't rub it. Everything needs to stay where it is while it heals."

He smiled as he looked at it, "Thank you, Laura. This really is something I've wanted for a good while now." The black symbol was small and precise, much like Natasha herself, and he had the choice of showing it off or keeping it private, which pleased him more than he could express at the moment. Being marked as Natasha's and her mark being secret both calmed and excited him. He applied the ointment again and the scab sloughed off in his hand, but the mark under the skin stayed put. The raw pinkness around the lines was fading back to its normal color as they watched. This was no doubt due to the leftover energy from the Gamma spike.

"I never thought I'd say this, Bruce, but your biology is absolutely beautiful to see at work," Laura marveled. "I usually deal with people who have damaged or broken bodies, so I genuinely appreciate the beauty of healing tissue."

Bruce grinned, "You should have seen Adam after his little dust up with Logan. They both healed up so fast the blood didn't have a chance to dry. When I transitioned back, I couldn't figure out why I was covered in this fine brown dust that smelled like iron and Gamma until Nat showed me the video with all the cuts closing up." He paused, "I'm sorry, I know I'm grossing you out with this."

"Oh, God, no, not in the least, Bruce. I find this completely fascinating," Laura assured him. "I'm a big medical nerd, so this is just . . . wow! Way better than all the spy stuff."

Bruce chuckled, "I get the spy stuff and the engineering stuff all the time. It's nice to talk biology." He looked down at his wrist on the desk and ran his right thumb over it before he tilted it so Laura could see it better.

"May I?" Laura asked and touched it cautiously as Bruce waited. "It's like it was always there and all the tattoo has done is make it visible."

"I was thinking the same thing," he said.

"Well, it all looks great now, so just hope is stays this way. It probably will need to be retouched at some point, but I can do that or any other reputable artist for that matter. Who knows, you may decide you want more."

"So, where's yours," Bruce asked with a knowing little smile.

"Shhh," she said conspiratorially, "I'll show you this one." Laura reached behind her head and held her long hair to the side. "Pull the collar down," she told Bruce.

The tattoo was a small and finely detailed arrow with purple fletching piercing an anatomical heart that was about the size of a thumbnail. The whole design was less than three inches wide. "It's beautiful," Bruce murmured.

"The person who taught me the art created that for a wedding present. She also offered to cover it with something else if things didn't work out." They both laughed at that. "Now go show yours to Nat. It sounds like she's out of the shower. I'll put this away and go see how my disobedient children are coming with lunch prep. By the way, thank you. I only heard the basics, but we owe you again."

"All in a day's work for the Big Guy," Bruce said with a smile and a shrug.

They both stood up, and she gave him a quick hug. "Hang in there. We're going to get the crazy spy woman over her issues. I promise you."

"I believe you," Bruce said. "I better get her out of there before she turns into a mermaid." Bruce knocked on the door, and Natasha told him to come in. She'd been taking her time with her hair. He reached around her from behind so she could see the tattoo in the mirror. He nuzzled comfortably into her neck and hugged her, breathing in her clean smells. "Thank you," he said. "This means so much to me."

She turned around and looked at Laura's handiwork more closely as she held his wrist. He could tell from her little smile that she was pleased. "Laura does good work. You're not bothered that I didn't get one, too?"

"No, I'm the one who needed something visible. Please don't feel obligated just because I did it," Bruce said.

"Thanks for understanding," Natasha said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and stoked his hair. "Let me think about it. I may just surprise you," she said with a grin.

"So does Clint have any?" Bruce asked cheekily.

"Uh, I'm not at liberty to say, but I think you'll have your answer when bikini weather hits." They both laughed. "Come on. Let's go find out if adults-only Mario Kart is on the itinerary for the afternoon. I think the kids are baking you a big veggie lasagna from the local market."

"Good call," he said, pulling on a flannel shirt, and they headed downstairs to see what adventures they'd find.

 **End Notes:** There's a lot to talk about here with a bunch of characters and issues: the scars and marks we carry by circumstance or choice and what it requires to be a good parent or partner or sibling.

What did you think about the section with Brian Banner?

Do you like Bruce's tattoo?

I'd love to talk about any of it with you! Questions, comments, and conversations are always open.

I'm not making promises if it will be one or two weeks for the next chapter, but I'll keep writing. We'll probably be back with Adam, Clint, and Tony in Cincinnati. Let me know what you think!


	51. Chapter 51

Chapter 51: Credence, Cofferdams, and the Trouble with Coms

 **Summary:** We are back to the "present" in Cincinnati and saving one small corner of the world at a time. Adam, Tony, and Clint get to play hero. Igor and Friday stay busy. Floods and egotistical generals stink.

 **Notes:** Put "Proud Mary" on the turntable because we are rolling on the river. Many thanks to the incomparable Autumn_Froste, especially for fitting in multiple reads of the ending.

Adam's memories of Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross were murky and nightmarish experiences that did not make a great deal of sense to him, but the jade giant was mentally rifling through them as he stood on the top of the Roebling Bridge and watched the military vehicles approach and take positions along Freedom Way, just behind the crowd of demonstrators near the traffic circle at the Ohio end of the bridge. In Adam's memory, there were fuzzy, blood-tinted images from right after the accident when he completely lost it and hurt people, including Betty and her father. That had been the first Hulk-out and it was full of nothing but pain, confusion, and violence. Much more clear were the encounters with Blonsky with his chemical enhancements at Culver and then as the Abomination in Harlem. Ross and his weapon-packed vehicles lurked in the background both times. There had been a lot of fighting, and Betty, beautiful and brave, was there, too, like a guiding star in the middle of the chaos, blood, and pain.

"Bruce, a little help here. I can't remember many details," he thought, and the information queued into his consciousness. A much younger and more charming Ross visiting Aunt Susan's house, sitting in the living room and having coffee and cookies while he pitched the idea of sending a twelve-year-old Bruce to the Science Academy. "Your brother was brilliant, but people misunderstood him. Such a tragedy. Going to the Academy would be good for the boy. Give him a chance to find his real peers and come out of his shell. My own daughter will be attending there in a few years." Then a heart-to-heart in his bedroom with Bruce sitting quietly on his bed while the General towered over him and paced. "Your old man had a real flare for innovation, and, son, I see that same potential in you. We can help focus that and put it to good use. Your teacher showed me the designs, and I've read your term papers. You need the challenges the Academy will give you to reach your full potential."

The next memory was from years later at Culver. The General was pacing in Bruce and Betty's corner of the lab. "Your research on radiation resistance and recovery has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, son. It's just a mater of time till someone uses a dirty bomb in a major population center. Become part of our Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Program, and we'll be ready for them years ahead of your timetable." The place stayed the same, but the scene then morphed into an angry Ross. "What don't you understand about producing results?! The funding on this entire project is being yanked because you're pussyfooting around human subjects testing. In your place, your father wouldn't have hesitated. He wouldn't have blinked. Banner, you're not half the scientist or the man that he was." In the next memory they were standing outside Betty's hospital room, and Ross sported cuts and bruises on his face and an injured arm in a sling. "I want you to stay the hell away from my daughter! Yes, we were using both of your research components in a more important project. That's how it works, you naïve little twit. Recreating Erskine's Serum is the Golden Fleece. Of course we planned to make a weapon out of it. Now you've ruined everything, and there's a monster on the loose. As soon as we sort this out, you're going to answer for it."

Adam shuffled these new memories in with his own like index cards, fitting them in the right order. Deep down he could feel Bruce had a well of shame and frustration connected to them. "It's okay, Bruce. The man is a bully and a master manipulator when it comes to getting his way. Betty is free of him. She's at peace with this and she's happy." Then he realized the emotions were in response to something newer and connected to a different source.

"I'm sorry," Bruce told Adam. "The whole thing was such a fucked-up disaster. If I'd just had the clarity of mind to think, I'd have figured out it was you. The way I treated you was inexcusable."

Now Adam understood. "Stop. You are not going to feel bad on my account, Bro. I forgave you months ago. It's water under a bridge for me, but we'll talk about it more later if you want. For now, let's focus and get this angst channeled in the right direction. I'll need some size to put those panels in place for the cofferdam, so go ahead and get pissed for the right reason. This asshole is going to grandstand and flood out half the Ohio River Valley, and _that_ makes us ANGRY."

Clint and Tony had gone quiet and were looking at Adam whose fists were clenched and eyes were closed. "Are you okay, Big Guy?" Clint asked.

Adam opened his eyes. "I'm good, but you'll probably need the giant economy-sized me," he explained, "so give me a little room, guys."

Anger and rage were always the easiest and most raw sources to tap for fuel to kindle the process into a blaze, and Bruce had a pretty deep well of those emotions to draw from, even though he'd figured out how to keep a lid on it. Adam said a quick prayer the new uniform held together as he called up the Gamma and swelled from his usual eight and half feet to almost fifteen. It didn't hurt nearly as much as transforming from normal-sized to Hulk-sized, but it still wasn't comfortable.

"Geeze, you weren't kidding 'giant economy-sized'," Clint said as he steadied his balance against the stone buttress to give Adam elbowroom.

"That is one hell of a bullfrog impersonation," Tony said. "Is it really necessary to do that or are you just planning on jerking Ross's chain?"

Adam gave Tony a scowl, "First, I'm going to remember that remark; second, yes, it's going to be needed; and third, why not?"

Tony sighed, "Note to self: Hulk, like Banner, also lacks a sense of humor when cranky."

Adam grinned and pointed to the frayed bridge cables and sprung covering, which he removed to expose the rest of the damage. "You're late, Shellhead. It might be a good idea for you or Igor to shore this up with some welding before we get in the water."

Clint grinned, "He's got a point, Stark."

"Friday, put Igor on it," Tony ordered the Interface and the blue heavy-duty armor proceeded to work on the repair with it's built-in torch. "I've got Mal and Jenn on coms, and I think Bruce would agree with me. We'll handle any negotiations, legal matters, and Ross. So how do you want to play this, Big Guy?"

Adam shot a quick look at Clint before he turned his gaze back to Tony, "The clock is ticking on that floodwater. If we're going to try and save the structure, I need to get to work."

Tony nodded in agreement. "Any objections to joining a union?" he asked. "Your work ethic might just frighten them off."

Adam snorted at the jab, "No, why?"

"Good, because there was a ton more paperwork if you didn't join. The local engineering and construction team will direct you and Igor and tell you what to do. The rest of us will deal with Ross if and when we need to. Now, go be a dam builder, and I'll join you in a few minutes."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "If anyone needs me, you know where to find me," he noted over the coms. Adam took one more look down at the military vehicles on the north bank and pointed a large green forefinger at the head of the line before he grinned and leapt for a clear spot on the shoreline close to the tractor-trailers.

Tony breathed a huge sigh of relief that he made sure did not go out over the coms. "I think I liked working with him better when he was non-verbal and didn't do call-outs."

"He still did call-outs when he was non-verbal," Clint said, thinking of Hulk out screaming the Chitauri after his killing blow to their mother ship. "They were just a lot louder."

"Well, he's definitely a lot sassier now than yesterday," Tony said and turned to give Clint a squinty stare. "Barton, I suspect somehow you might be to blame."

Clint put his hands up in denial. "Hey, that's all Banner. I'm not sure which Banner, but it's all the Big Guy, not me," Clint chuckled.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yah, and I hope we're not all going to wish Romanoff was here to deal with the both of them before lunchtime." He turned his coms back on, "Jennifer, any news on getting Ross to back off?"

"As long as you're suited up or Hulk is present, he's claiming he has the right to be here," she stated in her familiar business-like tone. "There's enough ambiguity on that point in the Agreements to put this into the courts, but for right now he seems to be sitting tight in front of the Freedom Center."

"If that's the case, let's just leave him parked among the protesters. Any word on the situation at the Meldahl Dam yet?"

Mel answered, "There's a bit of a standoff between Ross's people and the civilian facilities crew, so that is out of our hands unless the feds step in. Ross is not making many friends on the south side of the river today. If they wait much longer to open it, the water is going to overflow the dam and make taking action a moot point."

Tony bit his lower lip to keep from sighing yet again. When he last saw Bruce this morning, he'd thought the most unpleasant thing that could happen before lunch was having to work with outdated AV equipment: _Guess again, Stark_. Igor had finished up with the cable repairs and was evaluating the cover to assess whether the hand-fabricated piece was worth saving. Tony walked over to examine Friday and the big blue armor's repairs, "Let's leave this piece off for now, Friday, since someone official is going to want to inspect it." He turned to Clint, "Do you still want a ride down or would you rather stay up here and keep an eye on Ross and the rest of this circus?"

"I'll be of more use up here," Clint decided, "just don't forget where you left me."

"Okay, try not to take too many potshots," Tony said with a wink before closing his visor. "Come on, Igor. Let's go make sure Big Green is minding his manners."

Hulk's rumbling voice came over the audio, "You do know this suit has built-in coms, right?"

"Well, thank you for minding your manners," Tony said with some chagrin. "I don't remember seeing that in the video."

"Neither does Bruce, but it's way better than worrying about an ear piece getting stuck in an odd spot."

"Thanks for that new phobia," Tony replied with a wince as he and Igor descended and landed near Adam and a group of men and women in hardhats. Igor powered down into rest mode, and Tony opened his visor and walked over to the group. He already knew most of them either personally or by reputation since an hour ago, but there were a few new faces.

"It's about time our new welder got here," said a broad-shouldered dark-skinned man with a graying beard. He wore a work coverall, but a button-down shirt and stylish necktie were clearly visible underneath.

"Good to see you, Wally," Tony responded and shook the Project Coordinator's hand. Wallace Schoop's company had done repairs on the bridge before, so he would be supervising the project from the shore.

"MIT folks gotta stick together," Wally joked. "Tony, I think you know everyone, but Louis Hester here." A younger, coverall-clad man with straight dark hair and a friendly smile waved and nodded his head in acknowledgment.

"Nice to meet everyone in person. Let's not waste time since we have a bridge to save," Tony urged. He followed Louis and helped with the metal framing while Adam worked with Igor and Wally's team to position and sink the steel piers into the exact spots the construction engineers directed them to use.

One after another, Igor stood up a long steel pier on its end before the blue armor locked its vice grips onto the top and flew the support out to the spot indicated using lasers and GPS to position each correctly. Once the pier was in place, Adam drove it downward one blow at a time. Five was usually enough. The water level was so low Adam drove the first half dozen without his head getting wet, but the next dozen required a bit of swimming and diving before the two had worked around to the far side of the stone pier.

Although Adam didn't mind getting damp and dirty, he could definitely feel the cold when he paused between Igor's deliveries from the shore. There was no ice in the water, but it was still mid February. Despite the cold and being in a legitimate hurry, his inner preschooler was having a good time with the mud and water, and he was happy for the handy excuse not to hold back when it came to driving the steel beams into the silty river bottom. At heart, Adam was a peace-loving sort of being; however, there was a certain amount of enjoyment and satisfaction in letting off steam on this scale and working his body hard. Aside from Code Greens, he very seldom got to push himself and hardly ever in constructive ways.

Rather vaguely, Adam remembered tearing up tanks, armored vehicles, and bringing down the occasional aircraft, but Harlem and Johannesburg were the only two times he'd really been pushed in one-on-one situations that he remembered or could piece together from the footage. Adam knew there were other fights such as the one with Logan at Elk Ford in Canada, but his memory was still a bit fragmented. He didn't count the Chitauri or Ulton's minions because those were swarming fights that required teamwork to overcome. The only thing he was fighting today was the river current and the occasional boulder in the silt—well, so far anyway.

As they finished the leeward side, Tony summoned Igor over to help move the first quarter of the framing into position. Adam and Igor held the web-like assembly of metal beams in place while Tony did the above the waterline bolting and welding before Igor took on the remaining hold points below the water. Workers on shore were already assembling and formfitting the curve of the corrugated metal panels. These interlocked at the edges to make the outer sheath that kept the dam watertight and sealed out the river so the water inside could be pumped out. They were running short on time, so Wally directed Adam to pick up the attached panels two at a time and drive them vertically flush with the outside edge of the framework. By the time he had the second load, Tony was able to let Igor finish up the final welding while he helped Adam align the interlocking edges, so the sheets slid neatly into place. Adam leapt vertically and brought his fists down to drive the sheets into the riverbed until the top edge was even and Wally gave him a thumbs-up. He estimated the tops were just over 15 feet above the water's surface. Adam hoped this was going to be high enough to withstand the coming flood. Speaking of which, he looked up at Tony, "Any news about the upriver dam?"

"You don't want to know," Tony said tensely as he guided the metal sheet into the groove and made room for a Hulk smash to pound it into place. "Keep moving as fast as possible, Big Guy, because we are almost out of time." They were now half finished with the outer sheathing and Igor alternated with Adam, ferrying the sections over and pounding them into place.

Mel's voice came over the coms, "They've finally opened the dam, but many acres-worth of water have already been flooding around it for almost a half hour. The edge of the initial surge is almost to Coney Island and the I-275 Bridge. Please tell me you're almost done."

"It's going to be close. Keep us updated," Tony replied curtly.

"Bruce says that is not far up river," Adam noted. "How much of a surge?"

"They're reporting between five to seven feet initially, but it may reach over ten feet total," Mel said.

"Good to know," Tony noted. "Barton, you're awfully quiet."

"Nothing but parade rest and silence from the military so far and a steadily gathering crowd that's thinning out the protesters," Clint said. "I'll tell you as soon as I see the surge come around the bend."

"We're down to the last five panels," Wally's deep voice added. "Come on, people, you can do this!"

"Four!" said Adam as he gave his panel a Hulk-sized tap into place.

"Belleview is reporting a rise with lots of debris," Mel warned.

"Three," Tony counted as Igor powered another into place.

Adam had the penultimate piece ready and lowered it as Tony spotted for him. "Two!"

"Get ready to make adjustments on the last one," Wally warned. "That's always the hardest to do."

"She's comin' round the bend folks," Clint warned. "Lots of debris, trees, logs, maybe a surfer or two."

Adam helped Tony line up both sides of the final panel as the big blue armor held it steady, but the ends weren't sliding evenly and began to jam. Adam reached down in the muddy eddy. "Rock," he explained and pulled a boulder out of the muck with both hands. "Smash it, Igor!"

"The Big Mack Bridge is holding steady," Clint reported. "That's the big yellow one. Now we'll see if the Purple People Bridge does as well."

The final joints popped into place. "No time to pump out the water, guys, but let's get a reinforcement cable around it," Wally urged them. The steel cable was laid out on the shore for them, so Adam anchored the end while Tony and Igor wrapped it around the outside of the completed cofferdam above the waterline. When the two ends met, Adam bent and tied the steel cable with a simple sailor's knot that could be tightened and adjusted. Well, at least _he_ could adjust it.

"We have claps and collars for that," Wally noted as he inspected Adam's handiwork from the shore.

"Replace it when you have time," Adam responded.

"The surge is at whatever that silver bridge is called, something Southgate," Clint announced from above them. "So far everything is holding, and we're next."

Adam watched the water inch up on his thighs before he made his leap to the shore to join Tony and the engineering team. From the banks, they watched the wave roll forward as it pushed flotsam and jetsam downriver in front of it. The dam creaked and pinged, but it held as the water roiled around it and climbed the sides. The team started to clap then cheered. Adam smiled and let people high-five his hand as he offered it. Igor landed a few yards away, and as the front of the blue armor split open, Clint stepped out and joined them.

"Well done, everyone!" Wally boomed as he moved through the group and patted people on the back. When he got to Adam, he grinned up at him, "If you ever decide to retire from the superhero business and want a change in career, man, just give me a call. We could build some beautiful things together."

Adam smiled and cocked an eyebrow at the engineer, "I'll keep that in mind."

"As much as I hate to interrupt a well-earned celebration," Mel announced over the coms, "there is a second surge of water on the way."

"Any specs yet?" Tony asked.

"The surges started twenty minutes apart, but this one has some momentum behind it," Mel reported.

"Any recommendations?" Tony asked.

"Expect more of the same except more so," she replied.

"Okay, excuse me while I go check it out for myself then," he said and took off flying low over the river. They didn't have to wait long for a report. Credence Clearwater Revival's "Rolling on the River" came over the coms. "It's coming around the bend folks. This one swamped that low area by the amusement park, so some of the English is off of it, but it's still going to make up for that initial ten-foot drop." After a pause, Tony breathed, "Oh, holy crap, there's a small watercraft. Let me go take care of this." They could see Tony swoop toward a dark object on the water's surface near the south bank. Adam guessed it was a Johnboat that had been swept along with the first rush of water. Whether the owner liked it or not, Tony towed the boat back up to shelter in the mouth of the Licking River and beached it on the far bank before he turned his coms back on. "How far away is Maysville, KY?" Tony asked once he'd waved goodbye to the boat's occupants.

"About 50 miles," Adam answered.

"Well, those old fishing buddies had quite an adventure then," Tony said with some of the humor returning to his tone.

"Hey, not that many people can say they got a tow from Iron Man," Clint added and several people on the team laughed.

In the meantime, what looked like a huge rolling wall of brown water could be seen breaking around the bend and pushing more debris ahead of it. Adam thought the water would stay in the banks, but Bruce reminded him the force of the water and the assorted "lumber" and garbage were the real danger as they watched the roiling muddy flow engulf the piers of the first yellow-arched bridge.

"Looks like the big yellow bridge is holding okay," Tony reported as he paused to inspect the piers.

"It's the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, more commonly called 'the Big Mack'," Adam added.

"Well, it's definitely the newest and probably the one in the best shape," Tony said.

"The Purple People Bridge is probably the second oldest, so give it some room, Tony," Adam warned as the brown wave engulfed the pedestrian bridge's base. Now they could easily hear the water crash against the banks and the structures as it swept along. A large tree hung itself up on the pier closest to the middle of the river.

"I knew this was going too smoothly," Tony said as he assessed the situation. "I don't think this is going to pose an immediate problem, so I'm going to leave well enough alone." Tony paused for a moment, "Shit! But that freaking trailer coming down the current just might!" Tony could only watch as the old half sunken New Moon trailer rolled in the water and smashed into the snagged tree before sliding around it and heading down river. He scanned if for anything resembling human remains and found it empty. "Big Guy, this might require your attention. It looks like this metal mess is going to avoid the next set of bridge piers on the Southgate, but it might hit the Roebling's middle pier."

"Keep spotting it for me," Adam said. The muddy wave had safely swept by the Taylor-Southgate Bridge, so he leapt along the shore to land in the parking lot just down river from that bridge. Adam swung onto the superstructure to get a better view. He quickly spotted the trailer, "Ready or not, here I come!" He launched himself into the air and came down with both feet on the center of it. Predictably, Adam smashed and collapsed it as it sunk with him.

"Why did you do that?" Tony asked, sounding a bit annoyed, when Adam surfaced.

"So it would quit rolling and I can tow and beach it easier." He grabbed onto the hitch end and started kicking powerfully toward the south shore.

Tony shook his head skeptically inside the suit, "If you say so."

"I've got this, Tony. Now go keep an eye on the Roebling," Adam scolded with a rather Bruce-like tone as he used his powerful legs to make headway against the current. He was quickly parallel with the mouth of the Licking River. With another stroke, Adam could touch the rocky bottom, so he flung the remains of the smashed New Moon onto the brush-covered bank. "Status?" he asked over the coms.

"Holding solid so far. Better get back here," said Clint.

"Coming," Adam said as he backed up onto the bank's solid footing. He heard cheers coming from the top of the bank above him and turned to see a crowd waving and shouting encouragement. He smiled and gave them a quick thumbs-up before he sprang for the far bank. While he was airborne, Adam spotted more large debris threading the gaps between the first three bridges. "Tell me where you need me, folks," he requested as soon as he touched ground on the northern bank. "Tony?"

"I could use your flutter kick on this coal barge, Big Guy."

"On it," Adam said as he leapt back upriver to join Tony. The barge was about 100 feet long, but it was only about half full, which made maneuvering it somewhat easier. They were closer to the northern shore, so with Adam doing his best imitation of an outboard and Tony pulling like a towboat, they had the open container ship beached well before they reached the Roebling. They had to repeat the process with a half dozen more pieces of large debris and a damaged pontoon boat, while Igor and Friday pushed aside the smaller hazards that got close to the cofferdam. At its highest point, the water was within a yard of swamping the top of the dam, but within an hour, the flooding and current were settling back down.

Adam counted four boats, the barge, the trailer, and numerous trees and snags, as he climbed up on shore. Tony landed and they gave each other a thumbs-up before they approached the engineering team together. "Are we done?" Adam and Tony asked at the same time. Chuckling came back over the coms from several people.

Mel answered, "Yes, you're done with the river flooding, for the moment. Time to turn it over to the professionals." After several minutes of hand shaking and more backslapping, Tony, Clint, and Adam said their goodbyes. As Adam looked up the bank toward Smalle Park, he noticed the crowd lined up along the sidewalk for the first time. There were a few protesters sprinkled in, but most were waving and they even looked friendly. Tony was on the coms talking to Mal, and Clint walked over to join Adam. Adam gave Clint the slashing hand sign Natasha had taught him to get off the coms so everyone wouldn't be listening to them.

"Are you going to take Igor back to the hotel?" Adam asked the archer.

Clint pointed at Stark, "I think they're negotiating whether Igor stays of goes home. Tony wants to loan it to the contractors here to work on the bridge, but Ross is arguing against it of course. I think the mayors on both sides of the river are making their case for it."

"Do you think Wally would fit inside?"

Clint snorted, "I think Louis is more likely to pilot it."

"So, did you think it was any fun?"

"Riding in the armor?"

Adam nodded.

"It was okay if you aren't claustrophobic. I did fix his music mix while I was in there," Clint said matter-of-factly.

"Oh?" Adam noted. He was all to familiar with Tony's taste in workplace-appropriate music.

"Too much hard rock, so I added some mellow 80s."

Adam grinned, "Lots of schlockiness, but there're some singable tunes. Chicago is good."

"Air Supply was needed desperately," Clint said with a solemn nod of his head.

"Bruce only sings their stuff when Nat is outta town and Tony isn't in the lab." Bruce gave him a mental elbow for that.

"I'm all out of love. I'm so lost without you . . . ," Clint crooned.

"That's one of them."

"I'm not gonna judge him," Clint affirmed, "but Bruce has better taste than I thought. Why do you want to know about riding in the armor?"

"The only time Bruce got in a suit, the Gamma kind of messed things up, and we got stuck. I had to bust out of it after about 45 minutes."

"That definitely does not sound like fun. I'll bet Stark was fit to be tied."

"Yah, kind of takes the shine off the apple. Anyway, don't say anything to Tony. Bruce would rather not be in one again."

"But you would if it came in the right size?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Just curious is all." Adam was trying to be cool, but he was quite inquisitive when it came down to it.

Tony walked over to them, "Igor stays to help with repairs, but we have to participate in a photo op once the mayors are finished with their news conference."

"All of us?" Clint asked.

Tony turned off his coms, too. "You can hide in the armor if you want," he suggested.

"How about I just do my job from a distance?"

"I'm not going to oppose that, but you better get moving before someone recognizes you," Tony said under his breath.

"Any idea how long this is going to take?" Adam asked as Clint slipped into the edge of the crowd.

"They should be ready by the time we walk up the bank. How are you holding up, Adam?" he replied quietly now that they were relatively alone.

"I'm okay. We're both fine for now, but I'm definitely on the downhill side of the event. Much longer and Bruce will need to crash, too."

"If you can give me a half hour, I'll have you back in the suite with every carbohydrate imaginable."

"That's doable," Adam said with a tired smile.

"How're your pain levels? Nat said you're both way too stoic to let on, but you need to at least try the acupressure routine—whatever that is."

Adam smiled and shook his head as he started methodically pinching the flesh between his fingers. "The body pain is quite tolerable and the head is as manageable as it gets at this point," he reported. "So who all is at this press conference?" he asked as he nodded his head toward the north.

"Ross, the local politicians and law enforcement, some architects, a historian, one of the geologists they've snagged from the conference, and Mal is there to represent our interests and answer any questions."

"Ah, I get it. Ross plays peacekeeper and saves face?" Adam surmised.

"True, but he did make himself useful when it came to bossing around the Ohio National Guard and keeping the crowd civil. However, he's really cheesed off the local police force on this side of the river. Try not to rub it in too much."

"Me? Rub it in? I might give him a pat on the back, but surely I would be above rubbing anything salty into his wounds," Adam said with mock seriousness.

"Do me a favor, Adam, and leave the talking to Mel and me, okay?" Tony said with his own mock grin and a chuckle.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Adam quipped with a rumbling laugh.

Tony received a text from Mel on his display informing them the impromptu news conference in front of the Freedom Center was almost over. "All right, Mel says to get a move on. The plan is to smile, wave, and take a few pictures. Then we can go back to the Cincinnatian and pass out."

"Let's go," Adam said.

As they walked up the bank to the pavement, the crowd of people on the road started cheering then clapping and chanting: "Hulk! Hulk! I-ron Man! Hulk! Hulk! I-ron Man!"

Adam looked down at Tony and started grinning, "Kind of catchy."

"It does have a nice ring to it," Tony noted. As they reached the walk at the edge of Smalle Park, the people made way for them. Many of them shook Tony's hand or tapped and patted Adam's as he offered it in passing. Several thanked them and expressed their appreciation as well.

Now that he could get a better look at the ground ahead, Adam was amazed that over five hundred people had turned out during their lunch break on a sunny Friday in February to see what they were doing down by the Ohio, much less stuck around to see them up close and thank them. Tony smiled up at him, "Let's enjoy it, Big Guy. God knows it doesn't go this well every time." They steadily made their way to the plaza in front of the Freedom Center where several class field trips-worth of middle schoolers milled around the Ohio National Guard soldiers and equipment. A dozen local police officers approached them and formed a phalanx to get the two Avengers through the excited students and up to the staging area with the news crews. Adam spotted Mal talking to a reporter, and then he noted Ross glowering at him from the back of the crowd.

Although his first instinct was to walk up and get in the man's face, Adam didn't even consider that an option with so many people around. Instead, he settled for a friendly wave and a toothy smile that Adam knew would bug the old warhorse worse than any lewd hand gesture. He made a point after that of ignoring the frowning man in camouflage while keeping an eye on him with his peripheral vision. After that, Mal spotted them, and she walked Tony and Adam through the pictures ops and a brief statement about the importance of saving the Roebling Bridge for future generations. There was also a lot of hand shaking and politeness before the mayors of both Cincinnati and Covington surprised them with keys to both cities. Then there had to be more pictures and polite thank-yous. Adam was still managing to smile and nod at the correct times, but Tony soon whispered in Mal's ear that Hulk needed to go already.

Tony asked Adam if he could make it back to the hotel under his own power, and Adam nodded. He could easily do it in a few leaps. The last thing he wanted to do was transform back to Bruce and instantly pass out in public. "Don't worry, I can leap it from here," he assured them.

Mal gave him a skeptical look, but didn't argue. "I'll handle the goodbyes," she said. "You two go now."

Adam waved and walked around the far southwest corner of the Freedom Center to get a better line of vision to make his first leap. That's when the smell of a Cuban cigar wafted past him. He stopped in his tracks. "Say what you have to say, Ross," he growled. Adam thought the man was much more gray and gaunt than he remembered him as the General stepped out from a service alcove.

"I always knew you and the monster were one, Banner. It was just a matter or time till you let it slip."

"Yah, how clever of you to have caught me," Adam said in his best annoyed-teenager voice. He wasn't about to confirm or deny anything for this guy. "Now, if you'll excuse me . . ."

"This is a reminder, Banner, that you are _my_ property. It's just a mater of when, not if, I take possession. Every cell of yours is mine, and every cell of anything you and Romanoff produce is mine as well."

With that utterance, everything slowed down and focused down to a pinpoint for Adam in a split second. He knelt down in Ross's surprised, ghost-white face and kept his voice low and calm. "Shut up and listen, you miserable excuse for your species, because I'm only saying this once. You so much as come near my family, friends, or colleagues, there won't be enough left for a DNA sample." The general's face went from bloodless to mottled crimson, but for once he wasn't sputtering curses. "Take my advice and go make peace with your daughter, so you can know your grandchildren." Ross started to make a strangled growling sound, but Adam had had enough. He snapped his fingers close to Ross's ear and the older man went limp and fell to the sidewalk in a heap. "Medic!" Adam called, "the General has fainted." In less than a minute, professionals had laid the old man out on the sidewalk and were loosening his clothes and checking his vitals. Adam described what had happened to a Cincinnati Police Officer and then asked, "Am I good to go? I'll have to change back soon, and Dr. Banner won't remember any of this."

"You're fine, sir. He's stable, so I don't think an official statement is going to be necessary. You're free to go," she said.

"Thanks, you know where to find me." Adam opted to walk a couple of blocks north before stepping into an alley and taking as gentle of a leap as possible to a sturdy-looking building top before making more of a horizontal leap to the Cincinnatian's roof where Tony was waiting for him.

"That was a cute little concussive move with the finger snap," Tony said as he stepped out of his suit. "I'll remember that. Will he be okay?"

"Of course," Adam said. "He'll probably be up before they can stuff him into an ambulance."

"Okay, good, I guess."

"Fuck. Tony, I think he knows about Nat and Bruce and the baby."

"I heard over the coms. Thank God you just had it set for mine and Barton's links. Don't worry. We'll talk, okay?"

"We will. Take care of Bruce. He's not going to stay conscious for long once I turn." Tony nodded. Adam grinned, "Hey, break a leg on your presentation."

"Thanks, Adam."

He slid down to his knees and closed his eyes as the Gamma retreated back through his veins, and his body contracted to a third of its size. Adam let go and briefly touched Bruce's fingertips before he fell into the clear cold pool at the quarry, letting himself sink to the gravel bottom before he pushed off and kicked for the top. At last, he was free of the clothing and the noise. He broke the water's surface and it felt good to fill his lungs with air, even if it was just memories. He sidestroked lazily for the shore, turning on his back when he reached the shallows. Adam stared up at the sky and floated while he thought of the morning's events. He felt certain he could remember everything because there were no gaps, so he stood up and walked to the shore. He didn't actually "sleep" all that often, but he'd taken to spending more of that sort of downtime in the guest bedroom of Bruce and Natasha's apartment. He closed his eyes and the grass beneath his feet became a soft pile rug. Now, he felt like he was home even before he opened his eyes.

((o))

Inevitably, shrinking back to normal-sized hurt, but Bruce felt it was also a relief to be back in his own skin as the steam rose off him. Before Bruce could pitch forward onto the graveled rooftop, Tony stepped in and supported his friend underneath the arm and helped pull him to his feet. Bruce leaned his head back to make eye contact. "Ross knows, Tony. What the fuck are we going to do?"

"First, we're going to stuff you with naan bread and curry or maybe throw you in the shower because you smell like a muddy river and everything in it. Then you're going to get some sleep, and after that, we can make a plan." Bruce nodded and tried to smile as Tony walked him to the door to the staircase leading down to their rooms.

"Cripes, I smell awful!" Bruce said as he got a whiff of himself with the river residue ripening with his excess body heat. "Hey, we saved the day before lunch though, didn't we?" he said with a chuckle.

"Yes, we did, Bruce, and the new suit looked great. Maybe for the next upgrade, they can build some deodorant or Fabreeze stuff into the fabric."

"I'm all for that," said Clint over the coms.

"Oh, both of you shut up!" Bruce moaned.

"By the way, who's Adam?"

 **End Notes:** Thank you for sticking with me. I'm trying to get a bi-weekly rhythm going, but the in-laws are on the way. Hope you enjoyed the boys working together. So, how much does Ross know? Is he expecting an invite to the baby shower? Hope you caught the #SaveTheDay send up. Questions, comments, and conversation-please, please, please!


	52. Chapter 52

Chapter 52: Downtime and Torch Songs

 **Summary:** A guy has gotta eat and then he has to sleep. Adam has been a busy guy, but not as busy as some might think. Dream walking is a thing. Everyone loves old pictures. Fire up the torch songs.

 **Notes:** Put the music on and order out for Indian. Despite a power outage and a hurricane, Autumn_Froste still managed to Beta me through this chapter! She's my hero!

Adam had craved the quiet of the empty bedroom after a morning filled with hours of sensory input, so he stood there with his eyes closed and his toes doing crunches in the soft carpet for several minutes. He opened his eyes slowly and caught sight of someone out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned he saw himself in the new full-length mirror on the wall. He'd forgotten it was there, so he padded across the carpet and stared at himself in the light from the window. Usually, when he touched Bruce as he had during the transition, he defaulted to looking just like him—a carbon copy, a doppelganger of sorts. However, this time, instead of automatically copying Bruce, he'd taken the adult form he'd tried to create for 'Tasha last night when she asked what he might have looked like if he'd been born a fraternal twin. He'd tried to extrapolate from his stem cells how he might have grown up to appear. Reading his genes had been simple enough, but holding that form had been a challenge, so he'd dialed it back to an adolescent version without the complications of adult urges, responses, and feelings. Adam knew hiding behind his younger selves and avoiding his feelings and responsibilities couldn't go on forever, no matter how much he wanted to be small and harmless and unthreatening. Like schadenfreude, here was his adult body now when he certainly hadn't consciously tried to manifest it, something strange and unbidden as if it had been slowly uploading in the background like an over-sized file for a necessary system upgrade.

Asked for or not, here was his adult self staring back at him from the mirror. Despite his feeling exhausted, Adam's curiosity quickly overrode the fatigue. He walked closer to the mirror and studied the changes time and maturity might have produced. "Who are you?" he asked just to try out his voice. "Do I know you?" He was surprised that it didn't sound like Bruce's tenor; instead, it was pitched deeper. "Where did you come from?" he murmured to himself, actually enjoying the sound of this new voice. If he wasn't so tired, he might have sat down at the piano and tried to sing some Bing Crosby or Harry Connick, Jr. He hummed an arpeggio and grudgingly admitted this might be a change he liked.

Feeling slightly less apprehensive, Adam continued with the inspection. As he expected, his hair was curly and almost black, and the slightly paler skin made his freckles stand out more than Bruce's did. He wondered if he would have tanned or burned in the sun. Adam turned and studied his frame and the proportions in the mirror. The shoulders seemed narrower than his brother's, but maybe that was because he was a bit taller. Adam touched his face: it was slightly narrower but had just as chiseled of a jawline, nose, and cheekbones as Bruce's did. The mouth was the same down to the fullness of his lips and the lopsidedness of his smile. He moved his mouth around, making faces and arching his eyebrows together and independently. That made him smile. He definitely liked that all three of them had the same goofy grin in common. Nice straight teeth, too, he thought as he continued to manipulate his jaw and facial muscles. Adam leaned closer to the mirror. His eyes were his own dark green with the gray band around the outer edge of the iris. How had Bruce put it? Familiar, yet alien, unknowable. Something like that. Bruce hadn't meant it in a bad way, so Adam hadn't felt the need to think about it till now.

He stretched his arms above his head. Then he ran his hands through his dark, thick hair and imagined it longer then shorter. Their father had had a mustache, so that pretty much soured Adam on that idea, but he could have grown a beard if he wanted though it would seem strange to him. He wasn't used to seeing or feeling the body hair either, but he guessed he was all right with it. Natasha liked Bruce's, so it must be okay. He ran his hands across his chest, rubbing the mauve nipples with his thumbs before tucking his flattened hands under the opposite armpits and stepping back to studying how he looked from a different angle. He noted he wasn't circumcised, and recalled a lewd joke about snakes wearing turtlenecks that now made sense, and he snickered aloud. The sound surprised him, so he laughed more. Adam liked that it was deep and reminded him of Hulk's low chuckle. He'd never thought of that as _his_ , but Adam enjoyed the idea now. Also, he looked better, more familiar at least when he smiled, not so alien or odd.

Adam studied his hands and feet. They looked in perfect proportion to the rest of him; in fact, he was sure he could reach well over an octave now on the piano, maybe even C to F or G. This tempted him to go in the other room and play again, but a yawn overtook him and that was that. He rubbed his eyes and pulled back the bed covers before he climbed into bed. There would be time for piano and other things soon enough. He wrapped his arms around his middle and curled up on his side before he drifted off.

((o))

Tony helped Bruce start down the two flights of stairs from the roof, but the physicist was steady enough on his feet to wave him off about halfway down. _Say what you want about Bruce being awkward or uncoordinated, the guy is tough_ , Tony though. He always bounced back after a Code Green or maybe he was just more stubborn and determined than most people. It was probably all of the above.

As they arrived at the door to the upper suites' hallway, Bruce turned to Tony, "Thanks for not saying anything about Adam."

Tony nodded, "Sorry I let it slip, but it just puts off the inevitable. I'm surprised you've gone this long without letting it get out."

"I've probably slipped up with someone already, but it's Adam's information to give out though, not mine." Bruce rubbed the back of his head, cringed at the dirty feel of it, and then looked at his grit-covered hand. "I'm going to have mercy on everyone and hit the shower first."

"Are you going to be okay? The last thing we need is for you to do a face-plant on the marble."

"I'll be fine, but you're welcome to keep me company if you want," Bruce said with a shrug.

Tony checked his texts. "Mal says they'll have the food sent up in the common area on our floor shortly, and your cousin Rich is bringing your stuff by in a bit, too."

"Then I better get cleaned up," Bruce said. Kayla met them in the hall and gave Bruce a new keycard, so they could get into his suite. Tony spotted the Girl Scout cookie box on the table as they walked into the bedroom. "No, there are no cookies in there to my knowledge," Bruce answered before Tony could ask. "It's some personal stuff Rich's mom saved that got misplaced then rediscovered."

"May I?" Tony asked, obviously quite curious.

"If you can limit yourself to just the stuff on top since I've only had time to look at a few pictures myself, okay?"

"You're killing me, but all right," Tony said as he pulled out a penknife from his pocket to help remove the packing tape.

Bruce knew his time was limited since Tony could only control himself for so long. He was without his phone, so he grabbed his iPod and slipped it into the correct slot on the speaker dock on the bathroom counter, so he could listen to his Maria Callas mix. Bruce walked straight into the shower and disengaged the TechUWear and stripped it off. After today, he was ready to give it a thumbs-up with some suggestions for improvements and modifications. Bruce turned on the shower and let it hit him in the face for a few minutes to help clear his head. _Ave Maria_ was the first selection that came up. The dirt and grime came off in rivulets before he even applied any soap. It did take some scrubbing before he felt clean again and he considered sending Tony out for some detergent, but eventually he was done and grabbed a towel from the rack to dry off.

"That's a little dramatic," Tony called from the other room as the current operatic piece finished up.

"Adam likes it and so do I," Bruce said as he wrapped a towel round his waist and pulled out his shave kit.

" _Ave Maria_ was my mom's favorite," Tony noted. "God, you were a cute kid."

Bruce looked up in the mirror, and he could see Tony was standing behind him in the doorway looking at the three photos in the triptych frame. "Yah, didn't last too long," Bruce said as he lathered up and started shaving.

Tony frowned in disagreement. "Well, you look a lot like your mom, and she was gorgeous. I know things didn't end well, but they took a good wedding photo."

"Yah," Bruce acknowledged as he pushed his cheek out with his tongue to get the corners around his mouth. "There may be a whole wedding album in the box. If you can wait, I'll get them out after lunch. I wanted Rich to be here for that part in case I don't know who some of the people are." Tony nodded and went back into the other room. Bruce wiped the remaining soap off his face and went into the bedroom to pull out his clothes and get dressed. He put on a new TechUWear combo before he pulled on jeans and a button-down shirt. Tony's phone chimed, and he came back into the bedroom as Bruce was putting on his shoes.

"At the risk of admitting I've been rather remiss in my duties as friend and coconspirator, how long have you had the tat?" the engineer asked.

"About four months," Bruce said with an amused smile. "To be fair, it's been under my watch and it disappears when I Hulk-out, so today would be the first chance you've had to see it."

"A gift from Nat?" Tony asked with an eyebrow arched.

"Yah," Bruce said with a nod.

"She picked it out?"

"No, I picked it out and I chose the location."

Tony nodded. Bruce knew his friend was dying to ask more questions, but he wasn't about to make it any easier. Damn, that was mean—he could be such a sadistic bastard. Bruce had finished tying his shoes, so he stood up and retrieved the keycard from the bureau top then rolled the cuffs of his blue dress shirt up to his forearms—admittedly so that Tony could see the Widow's mark. "Come on, Tony. I know you want to ask something. Spit it out."

Tony chewed his lips, but his eyes were glued to the small black hourglass. "Did it hurt a lot?"

"Yah, a bit," Bruce admitted. "They told me it would hurt more close to a bone than it would for someplace fleshier like a bicep, but I've felt a lot worse."

Tony nodded, "I'll bet you have. Would you mind if I, uh, felt it?"

Bruce did his best to keep a straight face and held out his wrist for inspection. "Go ahead."

"I can barely feel it," Tony said as he ran his thumb then his first two fingers over the tattoo. "So, did Nat get one, too?"

"Yes, but not till right before Christmas."

"Your present to her?"

"No, it was her Christmas present to me."

"Oh, something reciprocal?" Tony surmised.

"Yah, you could say that," Bruce confirmed.

Tony snorted, "I'm never gonna see it, am I?"

Bruce shook his head, "Nope, not in this lifetime."

"Banner, you are one of the cruelest people I know."

"Yep. Let's go have some lunch," Bruce said and opened the suite door for Tony. Bruce could hear Rich's voice down the hall. When Adam had last seen Rich, he was in a crowd that included protesters and Ross's troops near the north end of the Roebling Bridge, so Bruce felt a bit of worry and concern for his cousin's safety finally slip away. As Tony and Bruce neared the commons area, he could smell the warm spices and ghee he associated with Indian dishes, and his stomach growled quite audibly.

"Holy crap, Bruce," Tony half turned to look at him, "Is that a tiger in your tank?"

Bruce laughed, "That completely dates us, you know. Where's Rich? He's older than both of us, so he'll get it." As they rounded the corner, Rich was talking to Mal as they watched footage from the bridge rescue and a variety of talking heads commented live. The bearded priest turned when he heard Bruce's voice.

"Here he is! You were just unbelievable, Bru," Rich said as he threw his arms around Bruce in an eager hug that he returned. Rich finally let him go and fluffed his cousin's hair affectionately. Bruce blushed as he smiled at Rich. It was a nice feeling to be appreciated by someone he admired.

"It was Hulk and Tony and a bunch of other people," Bruce said. "Oh, Rich, this is Tony Stark, and Tony, here's my cousin Richard Walcott. You both know me about as well as I can be known." The two men shook hands.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark," Rich said, regaining a little of his decorum.

"It's a pleasure meeting you, Rev. Walcott. Just 'Tony' is fine. So, 'Bru', huh? I'll definitely remember that one."

"Call me 'Rich,' please."

Mal skillfully gripped Bruce's elbow and steered him toward the table with the fragrant, savory food. "You need to eat, dear. Load your plate and tuck in before you make yourself ill," she ordered. Bruce didn't even attempt to object. He grabbed a plate from the end of the table and loaded it with Batata Vada, samosas, and plenty of both types of naan since he needed the carbs most. Kayla already had glasses of water, juice, and sports drinks lined up for him as he sat down at one of the circular tables with chairs that had been moved into the room.

"Auntie Mal says I'm not to move until you've cleaned you plate and drunk at least two of these," Kayla said with a humorous glint in her eye.

"Well, then sit down and talk to me while I stuff my face," he said with a gesture to the seat next to him. Kayla laughed at him and sat down. "What are the commentators saying?"

"You, Tony, and the rest of the team are being heralded as heroes, especially by the local press. Nationally, the earthquake is a bigger story, but Auntie Mal says it's a media coup."

"Did the Big Guy behave?" Bruce asked seriously between bites.

"Nothing on television or the Internet to show he wasn't on his best behavior. My favorites are some of the videos showing up on social media of him giving a thumbs-up to the bystanders and waving to children on buses."

Bruce nodded. "Anything about Ross?" he asked.

"They're reporting he had a fainting spell, but there's no footage so far," she said. "He refused treatment at the scene."

"That's about as good as we could expect," he nodded. The fewer people who knew Hulk's range of talents, the better. Adam and he had theorized how much speed and focused concussive force he could generate with a finger snap, but Bruce hadn't expected Adam to try it, much less to apply it quite so effectively. It had only been a little over 24 hours since the mental wall had come down, and they were long overdue for a talk. Bruce could tell that right now his twin was disengaged and drifting, as close to sleeping as he came after a long, stressful transformation, so he left Adam alone for the time being and kept working on the food.

Mal dismissed Kayla from her wrangling duties and placed two plates with Saag paneer, tandoori baked chicken, and vegetable-stuffed paratha bread in front of Bruce, and he gave her a rueful look. He was already halfway through the first round of potato-stuffed samosas and naan, so it was clear she was pushing the protein with the carbs now. "Thank you," he said between bites, and she gave him a nod that dared him not to clean his plate and turned back to talk to some of the tech and media people monitoring the flood coverage.

"I seriously think Mal likes you better because she can stuff you full of home cooking," Tony surmised as he and Rich sat down with their own plates of food at the same table. Bruce just smiled and kept chewing. "Was he like this as a kid, Rich?"

"You mean, way too serious and in need of help to feed himself?" Rich joked as he reached over and ruffled Bruce's damp hair yet again. "My cousin has always been driven to the point of not taking care of himself."

"I'm not that bad," Bruce objected, "especially in comparison to other people at the table."

"The difference is in the magnitude of the consequences," Clint added as he joined them and shook Rich's hand. "Nice to meet you in person."

"Rich, this is Clint Barton," Bruce said by way of introduction.

"I'm the one who texted you earlier," Clint explained before addressing Bruce. "Me getting cranky because someone ate my pizza bagels is way different than you going into a crash because you didn't replace the energy you expended, Doc."

"I sit corrected," Bruce said with a chuckle, "but I did replace the pizza bagels."

"Hey, I'm glad you used them because you needed them. Now, Thor, on the other hand, just gets into them because he gets bored, but he never replaces them," Clint complained.

"Beware what you ask for, Barton. His mightiness is liable to bring you something more exotic than Pop-Tarts when he comes back to Midgard," Tony warned. The guy who paid to restock the larder in the tower knew this from personal experience.

"As long as it doesn't have antlers, tusks, and scales, I won't complain that much." That got a raised eyebrow out of Rich, but he didn't say anything. The archer quickly downed a warm bowl of dal soup as they all ate before coming back to another subject. "Hey, you guys never did tell me who Adam is."

Tony looked over at Bruce who was looking at the bottle of water in his hand before he looked up at Clint. "It's not really my information to share, but I'm sure you have a good guess."

Clint pursed his lips and nodded, but it was Rich who voiced his deduction: "It's Hulk's given name—isn't it?" Bruce stared at his cousin with a look of mild surprise since he'd not been privy to the earlier conversations. Clint and Tony both looked at the priest expectantly. "Well, I say that, Bruce, because your mother wanted to name you _Adam_ Bruce, but your dad insisted on _Robert_ Bruce, which I believe was your grandfather's name. At least that's what my mother told me."

"Wow, really? I didn't know that," Bruce said and chewed his lower lip, trying to incorporate the new information into what he remembered.

Clint nodded his head, "That would make sense." He then looked over at Rich, "Rev. Walcott, since you're a deacon and a blood relative, can you invoke the sanctity of the counseling session or confessional?" The request left Rich a little puzzled.

"Rich, he's asking if you can keep a secret," Tony explained.

"Oh, certainly. You don't have to say any more than you're Bruce's friend, and my mouth is shut," the deacon assured him.

Clint smiled. He also knew that Natasha had fully vetted Rich months before, so that didn't hurt. "Thanks, this is probably nothing, but one reason I'm asking about the name Adam is my daughter Lila's imaginary friend is named Adam, too. I kind of hope that's a coincidence, Bruce."

"I suspect it's not," Bruce replied.

"I don't know. She says her friend Adam is her age, but there isn't an Adam in her school in the second grade."

"Well, he often is about Lila's age, or at least he appears that way in my head. He doesn't look like the Hulk most of the time." Clint looked at Bruce skeptically. "It's sort of hard to explain without being able to show you, but at first that's how he thought of himself, so he's comfortable at that stage. It's almost a Peter Pan thing except that it's primarily because living in my head 99% of the time has kept him from maturing as if he was normal."

"Seriously, he's a little kid?" Clint asked. "I'm having a hard time imaging the Big Guy as a sprout."

"First, he's not green. Second, he's whatever he wants to be. It's in my imagination—a different plane of reality, so he's not tied to how he manifests in our reality," Bruce explained. He let that sink in for a minute. "Do you know when or where she has seen him?"

"She just talks about them playing and talking every so often."

"Is it when she's dreaming?" Bruce asked.

"I suppose it could be."

"That's really the only way I can think of that they'd be able to cross paths. How long has this been happening?"

Clint thought for a moment, "Since some time in October I believe."

"Well, that would be after she met Hulk when Natasha and I visited and the kids and Laura met him the first time. I'll ask him when he's out of his stupor, but I think I'm safe in saying he wouldn't have done anything aside from what you've described. He's a guardian at heart; in fact, that was his name and function for a long time when I was much younger. He kept me from being lonely and made sure I avoided trouble."

"You know, it could all just be her imagination, too," Rich suggested. "She's only six or seven, right? Kids do live in their heads a lot at that age. Sometimes it's just a stage kids go through."

"Yah, that's true," Clint said as he shook his head. "This may be nothing but a coincidence of names and timing. Look, Bruce, I trust him with Lila, but I want to know what's going on."

Bruce nodded, "Of course, and I'd like to know, too. I'll probably be able to talk to him when I get to sleep deep enough, and then I can ask him."

Tony hadn't said anything for several minutes as he ate and listened, but he slid his empty plate away and looked at Bruce thoughtfully. "Adam has only identified himself to a few people, right?"

"You and maybe Natasha and Lila are it except for the people here at this table, so I'd appreciate it if it went no further until he's okay with it," Bruce said quietly.

"Of course," Rich said and Clint nodded.

"My point is," Tony continued, "you've been saying you think there's a reason you two are suddenly in closer contact. Maybe he's come along far enough to work with you more equally, Bruce, and be out more. Have you looked at the footage from today yet?"

"No, Kayla said the press and media coverage was good, and I had a pretty decent seat in the peanut gallery, so I thought I'd wait till later for the spin," Bruce replied.

"Well, the Big Guy was functioning and communicating like a regular team member. Wouldn't you agree, Barton?"

"Yah, I would. He's even improved since we worked together in October. Considering where the two of you started, Bruce, the difference is night and day."

"He faced down Ross of all people without losing his composure, and he got you back to a safe spot before he transitioned. She may not look it, but Mal is sort of giddy right now about all the good press and so is Jenn."

At this point, Bruce had stuffed all the calories in that he could, so he stacked and pushed the last plate away. "Okay, so we're ready, Tony, but ready for what? As big as the earthquake and flood are, I don't think they're it. I don't begrudge Adam the face time, but as you can see, it takes its toll on me and Adam as well."

"Have you had any word come in from Strange at all?" Tony asked.

With an apologetic grin, Rich reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out Bruce's phone to hand back to him. "Sorry, I meant to return this to you sooner. I think Mal's assistant took the rest to your suite." Bruce chuckled and checked the messages and texts.

"No. Nothing except the text from Thursday. I don't even sense anything and neither has Adam that I can tell." Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, "Look, before Mal comes over here and sends me to bed like a kindergartener, let's go back to my suite and have a look at those wedding pictures before I pass out."

"The clock is ticking then," said Tony, and the four of them soon headed down the hall. What Bruce really wanted was for Rich to go through the wedding album and any other pictures there with him to identify people he didn't recognize himself. Tony had left the picture frame out on the table in the bedroom and the two albums were stacked beside it and the box. Bruce picked up the ivory-colored wedding album and pulled a pad of paper out of his briefcase to take notes. Rich and he sat down at the table and opened up the book. Bruce took a deep breath. The pictures in the frame had made him rather sad and wistful because they revealed the deterioration in his parents' relationship. These pictures, however, were all from a happier time and didn't hint so much at the tragedy to come. Everyone was laughing and smiling, including his father who looked adoringly at his bride or smiled at the camera. In a few he had the same grin Bruce knew he and Adam shared as well. He searched his memory but couldn't come up with a single time he'd seen the look in person.

Rich could see that Bruce was pausing over the candid shots and the posed portraits that had both his parents in them. He took the note pad from Bruce and started writing down names for the group shots and lineups while Bruce studied some of the images. Clint and Tony had been quietly looking over the two cousins' shoulders, but after a few minutes, Tony picked up the framed pictures and showed them to Clint.

"So that's Bruce, huh?" Clint said with a grin. "I know just who to send this to," he told Tony with a wink, and lay the pictures out flat on the bed before pulling out his cell phone and taking a picture of each.

"Cc them to me, too," Tony said.

"All right," Clint confirmed as he typed in "Guess who?" and sent them to Natasha and Laura as well. It took less than a minute for Laura to respond back.

"That's Bruce and his family, isn't it!?"

"Sure is."

"Kids are home early today. Btw, Lila tells me Bruce is Adam."

Clint showed Tony the screen with the conversation, and Tony rolled his eyes. "Dude, you better break out the shot gun and have a talk with the Big Guy."

The archer snorted, "I think I'll leave that up to Bruce. It's not like we're to Romeo and Juliette just yet." Clint's phone pinged again, but this time it was from Natasha.

"Are you trying to make me cry?"

"No. Thought you'd like seeing. Cousin brought them for B."

"Sorry. Felt ill and puked all morning. These are so sweet."

"R u okay now?"

"Fury making me eat crackers and go back to bed. Nurse Ratched threatening to take the phone now. Later."

Clint looked over at Bruce and realized the physicist looked like he was ready to pass out. Clint nudged Tony who was still staring at the pictures on the bed, and the engineer caught on immediately. He folded the frames back up and set them aside on a dresser to clear the bed. Tony put a hand on his friend's shoulder, "Hey, Bruce, you need to lay down."

Bruce looked like he was going to argue, but Clint shook his head. "Nope. Rich can finish making notes without you keeling over beside him. Bed. Now."

"See, you've made Barton use his dad voice," Tony said.

"All right," Bruce sighed, "but just for a little bit." He took off his shoes and his dress shirt before he flopped dramatically on the middle of the bed and rolled onto his stomach.

Rich moved into the suite's living room and finished the last of his notes for the wedding album while Clint and Tony turned off the lights and followed him out.

Bruce rolled onto his side and pulled a pillow closer, trying to get comfortable. His phone hummed, and he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Nothing important, but he had a message from Nat that was a couple of hours old.

"Still sick. Still hate u. Miss u sooo much. 44 hours sucks."

He texted back: "42 hours. Still sucks. Want to touch you," before he laid the phone down and fell asleep.

((o))

Adam woke up with the nagging feeling he'd forgotten to do something or otherwise messed something up, but he wasn't sure what. He sat up and rubbed his face, thinking he was going to have to shower and shave, something he'd never done before, if he planned to stay in this adult body. "Okay, this is sucking," he said aloud. He wanted to retreat back into his familiar patterns and his younger body, but not just yet. He compromised and skipped the clean up by imagining himself already shaved, showered, and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. It was sort of cheating, but he felt like he needed to get moving. Adam stood up and stretched, running his fingers through his hair. He walked over to the window and wondered what time it was in the real world. He reached out to Bruce to check and realized he was unconscious and out of reach unless Adam started looking for him specifically. Adam backed off on his scanning only to find someone else was very close. He hurried down the hall and knocked at Bruce and Natasha's bedroom door. He heard a moan from inside that expressed anything but pleasure. "'Tasha?" he asked as he pushed open the door. She lay on her side on their bed, curled up in as tight of a ball as she could manage. "Are you all right?" he asked as he slipped into the room and brought up the lights enough to see. He was completely surprised to find her here, but he'd worry about that after he was sure she was okay.

"No," she moaned. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked her back, reopening their connection. He immediately picked up on a few issues. She was coping with the sudden influx of hormones flooding into her because of the pregnancy; unfortunately, her body wasn't buffering them enough to settle the nausea. Adam rubbed his hands together to build up a bit of heat and placed them both on her back, tracing them down both sides of her spine. He wasn't exactly a healer, but Adam was in the place he most considered his home environment, and he could control it down to the fine details. While Natasha was in his home, Adam could influence her perceptions and dull the queasiness. He ran his thumbs down both sides of her spine and this time she relaxed and uncurled with a sigh. After taking a few minutes to recover, she turned over so she could better see him. "How did you get here, Adam?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," he said. "I came into your dream last night and brought you here, but I didn't expect you back so soon without me bringing you."

"So I'm in your headspace, not mine?" she asked as she pushed herself up to sitting.

"Right," he said scooting over to give her space.

She looked around the room then focused her attention on him, "You look different from last night, Adam. You're less like Bruce, but you're the same age now." She could smell the apple and sage now.

"I think I 'updated'," he said. "This is the form I tried to find for you last time. It took a while, but I think this is how I would have looked." He could feel himself getting nervous and self-conscious. "We had a really busy morning 'Avenging'. We saved a bridge from a flood by building a cofferdam and keeping the debris in the floodwaters away from it. Uh, and I kind of told off Gen. Ross, so all in all, it was a pretty enjoyable morning. The water was pretty cold though. Um, anyway, when I turned control back over to Bruce, I touched him to default back to his form, but I manifested this one instead." He patted his hands down his front. "I hope it looks okay. So far, I can hold this form really well without it stressing me. I like the voice, and I think the smile is pretty good, too, right? What do you think?"

Natasha smiled warmly and took his right hand in both of hers, "Adam, you are a beautiful soul, inside and out. Yes, I love your voice and your smile. I'm so proud of you, and I know Bruce is, too." Natasha wanted to add that he'd turned out to be pretty damn hot, but she didn't want to confuse him.

He grinned back at her. "Are you feeling better now?"

"Yah, actually, I am. What did you do?" she asked.

"Because you're here, I can block some of the nausea. I'm hoping that will give your body a chance to catch up with the increased hormone levels. If you can keep some fluids down when you wake up, maybe you'll start feeling better," he explained. "We'll know when your appetite kicks back in."

"Thanks, Adam. Guess I really needed the break. I spent most of the morning running from the bedroom to the bathroom."

"If you're napping this deeply around noon, you're pretty exhausted," Adam said. "You're only the second person I've had dream walk here, so I guess it's our connection that's pulling you to this space. I'm sure the doctor told you it takes a lot of energy to gear up your body and get ready for a pregnancy. This is going to be for the long haul, but you're in tiptop shape and you want this baby, right?"

"More than almost anything. I'm still getting over the shock of it. It's hard to get my head around it happening, but we both want this child."

"We're going to get you through this. I promised you that I'd have your back, and I don't take that lightly."

She smiled and kissed his fingers before letting his hand go. "Hey, you promised me you'd play the piano."

"Did I?" he asked playfully. "Maybe that's a promise I should keep." He stood up and offered her his hand, which she took and held on to as he led her out of the room and back down the hall to the living room. He opened up the piano's keyboard, and they both sat down on the bench. "What do you want to hear?" he asked.

"Hmm . . . something old," she said.

"Like Mozart old or Rat Pack old?"

"Rat Pack old will do," she decided.

He thought for a moment, "You know that's a lot of torch songs. Do you think that's appropriate?"

"At least I stand a chance of knowing the words," she said.

"No actual love songs without Bruce here. I'm guessing he'll show up in about half an hour give or take ten minutes. Then, if you'll sing them, I'll play you all the love songs I can remember."

"Does he know I'm here?"

"I think it will be a surprise," he said with a grin. "What do you say? Deal?"

"Yes, but what are you going to play in the meantime?"

"Okay, here's a compromise," he said and played a few chords to get a feel for his new reach before he started playing a tune that seemed familiar, but she didn't know the lyrics.

"I know what this is, but I don't think there are lyrics."

"Basin Street Blues," he said as he continued to play through the verse. "Okay, let's try this," he said, as he switched to a different tune and sang:

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans  
And miss it each night and day?  
I know I'm not wrong this feeling's gettin' stronger  
The longer, I stay away.  
Miss them moss covered vines the tall sugar pines  
Where mockin' birds used to sing  
And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi hurryin' into spring.

"That's nice," she said as she listened to him. "I knew you were going to sing bass when I heard you speak. Is that Harry Connick, Jr.?"

"Yes, same album as the first one." He finished the song with just the piano and went through some chords and runs to work his fingers more. Maybe this adult body wasn't so bad.

"You said I was 'dream walking.' Is that a technical term or just a descriptive one?"

"Native Americans use it, and it is descriptive and poetic, too. You may not have physically walked here, but you've traveled from your normal place in your own head to here. I suppose it is a bit like sleep walking." He looked over at her for a reaction. "Does that make any sense?"

"About as much as any of this. It does beat the usual anxiety and surrealism," she said with a shrug. "You said someone else had found a way here."

He kept playing quietly, but looked at her again. "Please don't be mad. Back in October when we visited the Bartons, the same evening after you and Lila almost got smothered in the wet sand, Bruce had made a construct for me that day of the Bartons' house. I was exploring the inside rooms, but I was so tired I lay down on the couch because I was pretty trashed. She found me asleep there and woke me up. I looked like I was her age, so I stayed that way and we did kid things. We played and she showed me around, so I could add to the details. You know about the tunnels and the shelter, right?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow, "Yes, I do."

"I mean, she was a really thorough guide, and we had a good time playing, but I made it clear I couldn't really interact that way again. We said goodbye, and I thought I had sealed the place off. Bruce hasn't done many constructs, so I basically redid the foundation and thought it was fixed. She didn't show up there again, and everything seemed fine."

"However . . . ?" Natasha said. There was always a _however_ or a _but_.

"However, right when the kids started their winter holiday, she had a disagreement with her two best friends and was really distressed. We sort of mutually connected again. Well, I could sense she was horribly upset, so I found her and we talked and played some more, like we had the first time, till she felt better. I probably shouldn't have done it, but it's not happened again since. I still feel connected. Not as closely as I'm connected to you, but if she called me, I'd feel obligated to answer and help her. All she wanted was someone to listen to her."

Natasha patted him on the shoulder. "Adam, I don't think you were wrong to comfort her. Everybody who cares about Lila would have done the same thing if they could. You're just able to reach her on a different . . . plane?" Natasha paused as a thought occurred to her, "The same thing happened to you and me when our pulses, our heartbeats matched up, didn't it?" she guessed.

"Yes, we already had a connection with the lullaby, but this builds on that foundation. I think this synchronicity—for lack of a better term—helps us home in on each other. I knew you were here before I heard you," he explained. "Are you okay with this link between us? It's more intrusive than I realized at first. It sort of clicked into place before I understood where the consequences would lead."

She reached over and touched his bare forearm as he played a few bars of a Gershwin tune. There was a bit of a zing that made the hairs on her arm stand up, but it settled down into a comfortable warmth. Again she could smell the apples like someone had bitten into a Jonathan or Granny Smith with their tartness and underneath that the earthiness of the sage as if its leaves were just now brushed by someone's passing hand. She studied his face as he applied more of his attention to playing the piece. Natasha could recognize her large, green colleague in him from the set of his jaw as he concentrated and repeated a couple of measures until he had smoothed them out to his satisfaction. There was some of Bruce there, but this wasn't a mask Adam was trying on or hiding behind. This face looked right and natural on him. Adam realized she was looking at him, "Well, I hope you're okay with it because I'm not sure how to disconnect. I'm afraid it might be very painful. At least I know it would be from my end. Say something, 'Tasha."

"Right! I'm sorry, Adam. It's just sort of mesmerizing to watch you play. No, I didn't know where this was going at first either, but I want this connection to you and to Bruce. I have no desire to break things off," she reassured him. Adam smiled and there was more than a little relief behind the grin. "Say, piano man," she said in a less serious tone, "do you know 'You Belong to Me'?"

He cocked an eyebrow, "Do I know it?" and he played the chorus through. "Is that it?" He could sense Bruce was close now, so bring on whatever the lady wanted to hear or sing.

"You've got it. Unhurried, but steady tempo," she said with a smile and sang the scat line as he finished the prelude's chords.

See the pyramids along the Nile  
See the sunrise on a tropic isle  
Just remember darlin' all the while  
You belong to me.

See the market place in Old Algiers  
Send me photographs and souvenirs  
Just remember when a dream appears  
You belong to me.

I'll be so alone without you  
Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue.

Fly the ocean in a silver plane  
See the jungle when it's wet with rain  
Just remember 'til you're home again  
You belong to me.

"It's too beautiful to interrupt," Bruce said as he stood in the foyer. Natasha jumped up and ran to meet him. He caught her in his arms and pulled her close. "I've been lonesome all right."

"Be quiet," she said and kissed him on the mouth. He felt solid and warm. Their lips and tongues sparred in their excitement, and they laughed and kissed at the same time. Bruce picked her up and Natasha wrapped her legs around his waist.

Adam finished up the last line of the song and closed the keyboard cover. He stood up and was getting ready to leave when Bruce momentarily pulled away from Natasha's embrace, "Don't go too far. We need to talk." Adam shook his head and waved to acknowledge him before stepping through the wall. He kept walking for a while in the nothingness until he felt the wind pick up and heard the waves on the stony beach. He kept the air warm around him to ward off the dampness. The fog lifted a bit after he arrived at the water's edge. He picked up a rock and hurled it as hard as he could across the water, but didn't hear it splash.

"Hey, be careful," squawked Raven as it landed on the beach at Adam's feet.

"Sorry," Adam said. "I didn't see you there."

"Word to the wise, when you're standing at the end of your world, it's not a good idea to throw stones off it. It can have unintended consequences."

Adam bent down so he was crouching on all fours, much like he did when he was Hulk. "So how have I fucked up? I hardly ever see you unless I've messed something up."

"Don't worry, Big Guy. This is mostly a social visit."

"Nice place for a party," Adam said looking around at all the grayness.

"Don't complain. You got what you thought you wanted."

Adam snorted and sat back on his heels, "It's exactly what I wanted."

"So why are you here throwing rocks off the end of the world?" Raven demanded.

"Because I think I know what has to come next," Adam said as he stared at the stones under their feet.

"Really?" Raven said with its head cocked to the side.

"You were with me, so you should know, bird. I don't have the false bliss of disassociation. It's just a matter of putting the pieces back together."

"Then relax. You've done your best. Got anything to eat around here?"

"Don't they feed you?" Adam snorted.

"Not often enough. Feasting and famine," it said shifting its feet nervously.

"Come on there's a tide pool a little further along." Adam stood up and started walking up the beach.

"Yum, seafood," Raven said as it flew to perch on Adam's shoulder. "What do you get when you puke up your lunch? Re-see food. Get it?"

"For an emissary, you're pretty uncouth."

"I'll have you know, that one kills back home. By the way, I like the new look. Work a little more on that smoldering, pissed-off stare and you'll have it down."

"Shut up and eat your escargot."

 **End Notes:** This was a busy chapter even if there wasn't a bridge saved. I've wanted Nat to sing "You Belong to Me" to Bruce for a long time. I like the Jo Stafford version the best: watch?v=zQfF84ackMM  
You asked for the tattoo; you got the tattoo. I'm not saying what or where just yet.  
Lila has dream walked and nearly gotten Adam in hot water.  
Thor is a bit of a mooch when it comes to pizza bagels.  
Raven is back! Nat and Bruce get a little cuddle time together.  
Your thoughts, comments, and questions are welcome.  
Next time Bruce will get to talk to Adam and we'll go from there.


	53. Chapter 53

**Summary:** Nat and Bruce cuddles. Raven can be a shit. Don't throw stones. Seriously, don't do it. The Master of the Mystic Arts returns. Adam makes coffee for Stephen and Bruce while they talk about constructs, castings, and what's "real". Adam is predictable.

 **Notes:** You're allowed to go build your blanket and pillow fort or just curl up under the kitchen table. Many thanks to Autumn_Froste who Beta-read while her household is fighting off the creeping crud. I'm having the usual issues getting this to post, so I'll post up a cleaner copy on Monday.

Chapter 53: Philosophers, Stones, and Cosmic Speed Dating

"I'm going to spend the next eight months worshiping this," Bruce said as he kissed and gently nuzzled his face against Natasha's stomach. He still wasn't used to calling her his fiancé, but it certainly had a nice sound.

"You can worship it all you want as long as you get up with it in the middle of the night and change its diapers," she said with a snort.

"You know I will," he said earnestly.

"I'm going to hold you to that," Natasha warned as she threaded her fingers through his hair. She knew they were just dreaming together, but everything felt so real and lucid it was hard to tell the difference.

He hugged her middle as they lay there on what looked like their bed with Natasha propped against the headboard and Bruce lying across her thighs with his head in her lap. They were both too tired to do more than kiss and cuddle, so there they lay for a blissful forty minutes or so and simply enjoyed being together. Bruce had to admit, the idea of having sex in this limbo had its appeals, but it could wait till they were both in better shape and back in their real bed in their real apartment.

"So what do you need to talk to Adam about that's so urgent?" she finally asked.

"You'll never guess the name of Lila Lu's new imaginary friend."

"Oh, he was telling me about that. She connected with Adam when we were on the farm in October, and he thought he had her blocked out until she had a rough patch in December with her friends. "

"So we're just talking about two times he's had contact?" That was what Bruce had been hoping.

"Just the two times over the past four months as his cute munchkin self. Nothing untoward or inappropriate, mostly just emotional support, especially the second time. Two kids talking and playing together."

Bruce sighed with relief, "Good. That's pretty much what I thought it would be, but I'll confirm it with him." He shook his head, "Sometimes I think working with him has us half prepped for being parents."

"Can't hurt," she said with a smile and stretched her arms lazily above her head.

"Are you feeling better now?" he asked with some concern.

"I'm feeling better here and now, but I'm not sure if this will carry over once I wake up. I think I've kept down Nick's 7-Up and crackers, so maybe the worst of it is over for the day. I was hoping to go back out and look for baby stuff, but I guess sitting up on the couch and shopping online is going to be it."

"I'll help you with it when I get back, so please don't order the furniture yet."

"Aye-aye, Love, but you may have to consult with Happy on this because he certainly has his well-considered opinions on the superiority of barnyard-themed decor."

"Yikes, I was rooting for knights and wizards and warrior princesses and dragons and ogres dancing on the village green," Bruce half teased.

"That may have to be a custom order, but don't give up on it just yet," Natasha said. "As much as I would like this to last all day, I must be feeling better because I want something to eat now."

"Which means you need to get up and eat while you can," Bruce finished and sat up so she could move. She leaned forward and kissed him. "Forty hours?"

"And counting. Be safe," he said and stroked her face with his fingers.

She leaned her cheek against his hand. "As safe as I can. Likewise, you." She faded and he wished he'd stolen one more kiss.

Bruce thought he was beginning to sigh almost as much as Tony as he drew his legs up and rested his head on his knees. He wasn't in a big hurry, but he wanted to speak with Adam about Lila and just talk with him for a bit. Things were moving fast where he could see them and he suspected it was the same elsewhere beyond their normal sphere. Yet, time away from Natasha seemed to drag. One hour, one day at a time and they'd be through it. His senses reached out listening for Adam and found him at the edge of an area he was familiar with. Bruce could tell Adam wasn't entirely happy and he wasn't alone; abruptly, Bruce lost contact with his brother like a stream of water running through his fingers had been shut off. "Dammit!" he swore aloud. That just made Adam annoyingly difficult to locate.

((o))

"One of my favorite things about visiting you, Adam, is you always have food and you're good company," Raven said as he selected a large shell from the rocks near the tidal pool.

"I wouldn't exactly call that dinner myself," Adam said with a look of slight distaste as he watched the bird strike a mollusk against a rock to break its shell so he could gobble the contents up. The emissary usually wasn't this prone to flattering him, so Adam wondered what he wanted. He had hoped the fog would have burned off by now, but the weather was often like this near the edge.

"When in France," Raven croaked as he picked up what Adam thought was a periwinkle and gave it a good whack on the rock. It picked at the crushed shell till it had pulled out the tasty bits and then swallowed them down with a satisfied gulp. That seemed to have satiated the bird for the moment, and it turned its attention to conversation. "So, have you thought anymore about our offer?"

Adam was sitting on a rock above the pool opposite the anthopomorph. "I told you, 'No,' the last time. The situation hasn't changed: I'm happy here."

"If you have what you said you wanted, isn't your work almost done and your mission fulfilled? You ought to be ready for new challenges. Why not think big with your next move?"

"Whoa! This is my life and my home is here, and I have no plans to move on from them. Besides, that's not how it works. You know I can't physically relocate, so working for your 'employer' is not going to happen. It's a moot point."

"Now-now, Big G, who says it's impossible? Broaden your horizons and reconsider the situation. There's no reason to limit yourself to your current circumstance. You're young and powerful and dare I say attractive for what you are—the world should be your oyster, my lad. My employer has almost unlimited means and resources at his disposal. You don't need to be playing second to your brother and his life when . . ."

"You have a rather distorted view of my life. I'm not a free agent, and I don't want to be," Adam said with a trace of growing irritation. He could only imagine how someone in a different realm would want to use him, but he was sure their experience with Ross was a good hint. He had quit listening, but Raven just kept on talking.

"Well, you can work for others and do some trading—you know, show some reciprocity—to get what you want. A person of your talents would make a valuable asset and stand to reap some huge rewards."

"Not interested," Adam monotoned back and pretended to be engrossed in digging in a sandy spot with his toes.

"You could barter your services for other things that could get you free of your brotherly shackles."

"I am free. I have what I want."

"You could be free of this half life you're stuck in."

"I'm not stuck, and it's not half a life."

"Keep telling yourself that, my boy. Your brother gets the girl, gets the family. He has you under his thumb. What are you going to be here in a few months but a fifth wheel?"

"I'm not a fifth wheel; besides, it would be a fourth wheel anyway, and that makes no sense."

The bird found this last remark incredibly funny, "AAWWKK! Do you care to make a little wager?"

"I don't bet, and I especially don't bet with the likes of you, my feathered trickster."

That one hit too close to home for Raven. "You're confusing me with someone else," he sniffed.

Adam took a deep breath. He was still relatively calm considering how many of his buttons Raven was pushing all at once. In the back of his mind, he was furiously thinking through possible motives for this unusually hard sell. The creature enjoyed getting in his head and under his skin, but in their past dealings it had been much more subtle and with a dose of sarcastic good humor. This sudden pushiness was out of character. "Look, Raven, I have said _NO_ more than once, and I've tried to be polite. I value you and those you represent as allies, but you're wasting my time and patience here. If you don't stop . . ."

At that instant, the tide pool erupted with a large splash that sent Raven flapping and launched Adam onto his feet at full alert.

"Missing something?" came a voice out of the fog that was at once menacing and melodiously feminine. Adam held himself on the verge of powering up as a dark shape coalesced out of the fog. If it weren't for the ram-like curled horns and glowing blue eyes, she looked almost human as she floated a few feet above the water. Adam could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up as an overwhelming wave of power and fear washed over them.

"Oh, crap," Raven said in a low voice. "I told you throwing things was a bad idea."

"Hello," Adam called to her. "Sorry about that." He was careful to keep his hands in plain sight and not come any further forward than the water's edge as she glided up to within fifteen feet of him and floated at his eye level. Even with the horns, she wasn't much taller than five feet.

"Don't leave the shore and don't let her touch you," Raven quietly warned. "You're safe on your own lands, but we're on the edge."

The woman was a bronze color from head to foot except for her pale hair, which didn't seem to hold any color. Her clothing was some sort of pale leather and functionally tailored to her curves, covering most of her body from her shapely neck down to her bare feet. Her face was heart-shaped and youthful despite the aura of raw power about her. She had stopped at the water's edge and gave an appraising look around the misty shore. "Small gods with smaller realms should keep all the solid land they have," she said and dropped the rock on the shore at his feet.

"My apologies," Adam said. "I didn't intend to harm anyone."

At that she laughed, "It takes more than a stone to harm Nyxianna, but it did disturb my thoughts." Adam noted her teeth were quite sharp and definitely not human, but she was still quite beautiful. Her feet were a good six inches above the water, and she stared him directly in the eye. Adam realized that once he pushed past the aura of fear, what he sensed was a genuine curiosity and intellectual engagement, quite the opposite of what he'd expected from a powerful being he'd managed to hit with a rock.

"Once more, my sincere apologies, lady. It won't happen again," he said with an honest appeal as he studied her and she gazed intently back at him. Adam was certain what he was seeing was only a façade as this creature coolly assessed him. He stood his ground and didn't try to hide who or what he was as Nyxianna reached out to his mind and made contact. She meant him no harm, but she was insatiably curious, much like him. She latched onto memories of some of his other forms, trying to understand his character and nature. _Changeling? Hybrid?_ _No, you're something completely unique!_ she thought. He felt her delight as she discovered his dragon persona and embraced that part of him, forging connections, and finding him surprisingly suitable and to her liking. He felt amused and a little flattered at her enthusiastic reaction. Adam compulsively reached out to her and a stimulating jolt ran up his spine as he imagined her towering over him in elegant reptilian form, all sharp lines and flowing curves of bronze scales encircling him and drawing out his own great beast of green and iridescent black that intertwined with her and tenderly bit into her long graceful neck, asserting dominance and desire as she writhed beneath him. How he wanted her, a queen among dragons, longing for him to bed her.

As Nyxianna probed intimately into Adam's thoughts, she suddenly pulled back in alarm. _By Hoary Hoggoth's Hosts, you didn't say this was your first time, she intoned with surprise and some regret. I had no idea, my gallant. You seemed so mature and willing. It's my turn to apologize. Forgive my mistake._ It took a supreme act of will on Adam's part to let her go and pull himself out of the vision with the smoke and salt taste of her in his mouth. Part of him hadn't wanted to stop, and it roared in protest as its desires were thwarted. It took Adam a moment to regain his equilibrium, and Nyxianna looked at him with empathy and more than a little remorse. Adam looked back at her with confusion and longing. How could he have experienced so much in only a minute or so? There were bits and pieces of alien landscapes and people he'd never imagined hailing her as their defender. She ruled over them alone and peerless . . . in need of an heir. He closed his eyes and willed his heart rate and breathing to slow. He made himself look back at her and smile reassuringly to let her know he was fine: _No harm, no foul._

The look of concern Nyxianna gave him was genuine. "Take care, Guardian. Not every creature is as principled as I am. Midgard has attracted attention no one wants. Keep your allies close and your friends at your side." She turned to go, but Raven, who was cowering behind Adam, caught her eye. "This little deamon and those whom it serves require careful watching, my green one." Before Adam could even look puzzled, she was gone with a whirl of fog.

Adam felt a moment of vertigo that lowered him to his knees. It quickly passed and he found himself staring at the stone he'd accidentally summoned her with. A crude letter "N" was carved into its surface. Adam picked it up and found it was still warm to the touch. He stood up and saw that Raven was physically shaking. He pocketed the stone and held his hand out to the bird. "It's all right. She's gone." The dark bird hopped up his arm to his shoulder, much like Natasha nimbly climbed him when he was Hulk. Raven leaned in close to Adam's neck and said nothing for several minutes.

"What can you tell me about her?" Adam asked once Raven had calmed down.

"She's a granddaughter of night and a descendant of Helios on the other side. You can tell by her sunny disposition whose line she favors. She's some level of demi-god or might as well be. Her planet is a protectorate of Asgard, but it's pretty obvious she didn't approve of the pacification. What more do you need to know? She's obviously taken a fancy to you, kid."

"Aspects of us seem compatible, but she was more interested in my intentions and capabilities than other things. She's quite alone," Adam thought aloud.

"Adam, my child, sometimes you're so dense. You were probably about three heartbeats away from death by hot dragon sex. If she'd laid a hand on you, no contract would have been necessary. You'd have chosen to be her slave or at best her paramour until she'd used you up or grown tired of you."

Adam looked rather shocked. He hadn't gotten that impression from her; besides, it was all a bit pointless. "But you know I'm physically tied to this place. I can't go beyond it."

"Have you been listening at all? Couldn't you feel the power pouring off her? Her innate magic is strong enough to undo what binds you here whether it's natural or unnatural. It's what I was authorized to offer you if you were willing to come back with me. It takes strong magic, but it's quite possible."

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Adam shook his head. He wanted to argue that, just like people who tried to recruit Bruce, Raven's "boss" only wanted to use him as a weapon. He knew in his gut that even if separating him from Bruce were possible, there was no guarantee how long they might survive apart or if both of them would be left responsible for becoming Hulk. They were just finding their footing together. He gave the bird on his shoulder a long side-glance, "I still don't want to go, Raven."

"I know, and I won't harass you about it again for a while. I still think you might change your mind once the offspring arrive, er, arrives," Raven corrected.

"Why couldn't she put her feet on the shore?" Adam asked, puzzling over the details now.

"Rules. This is your home, your 'realm' per se, so you'd have to give her permission. It's kind of like the ancient rule about a vampire can't cross a threshold until someone invites it into the house. You know, hearth magic. It's a kind of guest-host relationship thing—very old and widely respected across the realms. It would be a huge taboo to break it."

"Would you be here without my permission?" Adam queried as he thought the concept through.

"No, but that's also good manners on my part because I did ask," the bird added defensively.

"So, if I had to, could I disinvite someone?"

"Yes, but some beings would leave more messily than others." Raven looked at Adam guiltily, "You're not going to kick me out are you?"

Adam tried not to smile inappropriately. "No, not as long as you mean no harm to me and mine. You're still a friend in good standing."

"Thank you, I didn't want to part on bad terms today. I'm sorry for what I said earlier. Anyway, your sibling has finally tracked you down. If I've learned anything in this lifetime, it's not to come between siblings. May the wind be at your tail, my friend. Thanks for the shellfish!"

"You're welcome." Adam watched the dark bird fly off into the dampness and the void. He sat down to wait for Bruce to arrive. Now that he was alone, Adam realized he was truly feeling the dampness for some reason, but he dismissed it as the backwash from two outside visitors so close upon each other's heels or whatever it was birds had . . . spurs? He really didn't get that tired and seldom had to sleep, but this was probably what being tired felt like. He ran his hand down his face to his jawline and felt the beginnings of rough stubble. Did he actually need a shave?

"What are you doing out here at the edge?" Bruce asked from close behind him.

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough to make a guess who your feathered guest is, but not the one you were talking about who left first. Sorry for eavesdropping. Sound can really carry here," Bruce said as he sat down beside Adam.

"Would you believe that I came out here hoping Strange would show up? I nearly hit Raven with a rock that instead ended up summoning I'm not sure what, but her name is Nyxianna." Adam turned so he could face Bruce better, "Let me try something." He reached up to cup Bruce's cheek with his right hand and stroked down the center of his forehead with his thumb to give Bruce an infusion of his memories from the past thirty minutes or so. Supreme mimic that he was, Adam had puzzled some of the technique out when Nyxianna used it on him.

Bruce pulled away as if he'd been shocked and put his hands to his temples. "Okay, for future reference, give me some warning first or just tell instead of show me like that. Second, that was _too much information_ , especially about the dragon lovemaking. My God, she seduced you then she backed off when she realized you were a virgin. I'm not sure what to make of that. Are you okay?"

"Yes, but I'm really confused. Did I do something wrong?" Adam implored.

"No, I mean, she initiated it. Were you willing or was this unwanted?"

"It was awfully fast, but it wasn't unwanted. I mean, I wanted to know her better first, but she sort of used a shortcut—like I just did—so we knew we're possibly compatible. There was some chemistry there. Part of me really wanted her, but it was the dragon part of me she found the most, uh, intriguing . . . useful? It . . . I didn't like being told no almost in the middle, but I respected that. I didn't force myself on her."

"Talk about cosmic speed dating. I don't think you were wrong then, Adam. If anything, the fault is hers for using her power to do what she wanted without really getting your consent first."

"I never did say no to her."

"But did you say _yes_?" Bruce asked.

"No, I didn't," Adam said, but he still felt responsible.

"Then it's a good thing she backed off. There's no delicate way to put this, but what she did comes very close to rape." He paused to observe Adam's reaction.

Adam simply shook his head. "I feel much more frustrated right now than I feel like she violated me."

"Okay, this certainly isn't a cut and dry case, but you may feel differently after you've had some time to think about it." Bruce was still trying to process everything his brother had downloaded into his head. "Lord, Adam, the consequences if this had gone on to play out in reality! I mean, she wanted you for a purpose." Bruce didn't want to admit it, but he was imagining half-alien space dragons with Adam's (and his) DNA. Bruce rubbed his temples, "Even if it turns out there was no physical contact, I don't even want to think about the possible consequences. Imagine the STDs that could be involved much less what offspring you might father in that form. You probably just dodged a bullet here, Adam."

"I know, more dating, less mating. I get it, but it's not like this," he gestured to his adult body, "came with an instruction book and a box of one-size-fits-all condoms. And this is just one of my forms." Bruce grimaced and kept shaking his head, so Adam moved on. "You know, practically speaking, whether or not this is 'real' is something Raven and I don't agree on. He's dead set this is all _real_ , but I don't believe it is. This was what, a vision in the dreamscape? Does that make it 'real'? I can't manifest a body in your reality."

"Plato would say yes, it is 'real,' but I'm not so sure he'd still say yes if he was here to judge in this situation. Did you believe it was happening?" Bruce asked.

"Well, in some sense, yes. It did happen and I felt it tactilely and emotionally, but it's only the memories and emotions that are left. And this . . ." Adam reached in his pocket and pulled out the stone with the "N" carved on the surface. It was still warm with his own body's heat. He handed it over to Bruce who examined it, flipping it over to reveal another marking Adam hadn't noticed at all. It looked like a rune or symbol.

"I'm guessing this is the World Tree, Yggdrasil," Bruce said, "but I don't know the full significance without looking it up. (There's never an Asguardian around when you need one.) This is the stone you threw and she brought it back to you?"

"Yes, but I don't think the rune was on it when I first picked it back up, just her initial. It was pretty warm to the touch, too. I thought it was only a token, something to remember her by or a reminder not to throw any more rocks," Adam said with a rueful shrug.

Bruce handed the stone back. "No, feel it. She did more than leave her marks on it."

Adam looked at both sides and closed his hand around it. He could feel the sentiment attached to it and then the mix of their two auras from that brief moment when they were about to create life together then some sadness and a bit of hope. _Hearth magic!_ Hints of her and their brief moment had been infused into his construct. Part of him wanted to laugh at the bitter irony of this. He'd just been goaded by Raven tempting him with a life of his own and not flinched. Now, here was something much more concrete, outlandish, and seductive, but he couldn't quite believe it was genuine. What a sad fool he must be refusing to come out of Plato's Cave. Yet, he had walked out here to Nietzsche's edge to stare into the void and maybe get some answers, but it had indeed stared back and bit him in the ass. Now his head was even more crowded with questions and double-edged possibilities. Life would be much easier if some ideas and hopes were drowned before they were born he thought miserably.

Bruce knew the look on his brother's face all too well because he'd seen it in the mirror so many times. "I know hope can seem cruel, but don't give up just yet, Adam. You kept it alive all those years when we were walled off and I was drowning in self-pity. Your belief in me paid off. I'm back with you now, so there is no need for you to face anything alone. This is new and unnerving, but you can lean on me." He put his arm around Adam's shoulders, and Adam rested his head on Bruce's shoulder.

"I keep thinking this is some cruel trick that's being played out by Loki or another entity when really it's just how things are," Adam said in a resigned voice.

Bruce turned his head and regarded Adam until he looked up and made eye contact, "It's what we make of it. You know, if we keep things on schedule, we'll be out from under the worst of the Agreements before the baby is born. We're making our shared life as full of a life as possible. If you want to try and find this Nyxianna, we'll put out queries. If she's real, we'll find her."

"She is most certainly _real_ , and she's not someone with whom to trifle," replied a deep resonant voice from the fog.

"You certainly took your sweet time," Adam said with a grin as he and Bruce stood up. "One might think you're someone not to be trifled with either."

The fog cleared from the beach with a gust of wind and the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange appeared, standing across the tidal pool from them in a dark blue suit with a Nauru collar. He was smiling with amusement that reached his piercing blue eyes. Strange stepped briskly around the water and embraced Adam and Bruce. "Let me look at you both. Two flowers, one root, but both in full bloom now." The taller man pulled back and looked fondly at Bruce. "I see fatherhood agrees with you already."

Bruce nodded, "I suppose good news travels fast, but I'm not the one who's feeling sick and throwing up either."

"As fast as electricity and Wi-Fi signals. If you and Natasha had both been confined in Stark Tower, it might still be a secret, but it was rumored even before you left the building yesterday." The men looked at each other and both shrugged their shoulders a bit. All of them knew they were being watched. It really couldn't be helped now, but Bruce had his suspicions. "And you," Strange turned his attention to Adam, "I see you've finally caught up to yourself. I rather liked you at six, but this is finally who you are. I understand you're already attracting attention from across the galaxy, wanted or not."

"About that, maybe you could enlighten me on how it happened and just what exactly did happen," Adam said.

"I will tell you what I know if we can go someplace further in from the edge and away from a body of water," the sorcerer requested.

In less than a heartbeat, they were standing in the kitchen in Dayton. Strange looked around, "Your childhood home in the late 1960s?"

"Right, but early 1970s," Adam said. "Military housing is always a little behind in the style department."

"Your sanctum sanctorum?" he asked Adam.

"That would be under the table," Bruce said with a grin as Adam playfully elbowed him.

"Ah, I myself am a firm believer in the sanctity of the blanket fort," Strange countered with a mostly straight face.

"Those are good, too. Have a seat, Stephen," Bruce invited him, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table.

"Would you like some coffee?" Adam asked. Strange raised an eyebrow at that.

Bruce smiled at their guest, "Adam doesn't often drink it or think it's 'real', but he still makes a decent cup."

"All right then, I'll have a cup." Stephen was quite curious to see how this worked. He was already quite impressed with the complexity of the surrounding mental construct. The sorcerer could feel the layer upon layer of detail and 'solidity', which extended to enhancing all three of the men's forms. If he didn't know they were in a mental space, he would have classified this as a pocket universe or a small dimension of its own.

Adam went through the ritual of brewing the coffee in the standard Mr. Coffee Maker on the counter with Mrs. Folger's ground coffee from a one-pound metal can from the pantry. He pulled out three mugs from the cabinet and lined them up. "Cream?" he asked as he pulled the small cow-shaped pitcher out of the refrigerator and placed it on the table beside the sugar bowl. He knew Bruce would probably want it with the "industrial strength" brand of coffee though he bet Stephen took his black. Adam was going to try and be sociable and have a cup, even if the coffee ice cream hadn't been his favorite the day before. He decided to imagine it was cotton candy-flavored if he didn't like it the way Bruce remembered the coffee tasting. Adam "made" the coffee and almost everything else here, but his brother supplied the sensory details since it was his input and experience Adam had to draw from most of the time. Adam was looking forward to expanding his sensory vocabulary, but he was pretty doubtful he'd ever like anything that registered as so bitter on Bruce's palate.

Bruce pulled three spoons from the silverware drawer and put one in each cup like they remembered their maternal grandfather doing. "So what finally brings you here?" Bruce asked. The physician rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers, "I knew you might be curious as to why you're now so available to each other. I also wanted to check and see how you both were doing since this was all very sudden and probably quite unsettling."

Adam had crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter now that the coffee was brewing, "You said this would happen either when we were ready or when we needed it. Well, which is it, Stephen?"

"It appears to be the former, but I've not ruled out the latter just yet," Strange said. "Make no mistake, the chess pieces are now on the board, and some are likely in motion on the far side. However, we still seem to have a bit of breathing space."

Bruce and Adam looked at each other. Both felt a little relieved, but they knew no one was off the hook just yet. The Mr. Coffee blew out its last belch of steam, so Bruce poured the coffee and Adam brought over the mugs, so they could sit and face each other comfortably across the kitchen table. As Adam predicted, Bruce doctored his with milk and sugar and Strange took his straight up black. Adam poured cream in his, and Bruce slid an envelope of hot cocoa mix he'd snagged from the pantry across the table to him. Adam looked at him quizzically. "Try it. That's how I eased into drinking coffee," Bruce said.

"Mocha?" Adam asked as he knocked the powder down to the bottom of the packet before tearing it open and carefully pouring the mix into his mug.

"Yah, it covers up some of the bitterness," Bruce said as he blew across the surface of his own drink. "You can back it off to half an envelope once you get used to it."

Stephen had been watching the brothers as he blew on his steaming, dark coffee. They interacted like they'd had a lifetime together, starting and finishing each other's ideas and sentences, watching each other to gage how to react. The contrast since he'd last seen them the previous May was quite profound. The physician finally took a drink from his mug and swallowed down the hot liquid. "Wow, that reminds me of my residency days!" He took another sip. "So how do you do this, Adam? I've seen pretty convincing illusions before, but this is a very authentic tasting, smelling, and feeling cup of coffee."

Adam had just taken a drink, so he was making a slight face as he swirled the bittersweet liquid around his mouth before swallowing. Strictly speaking, he specialized in making mental constructs, which were meant to be stable and permanent such as the room and the house they were inside now or the facsimile of Bruce and Natasha's apartment. The coffee, on the other hand, was temporary and cast much like he understood a magic spell was made; hence, he categorized it as a "casting" rather than a construct, but he wasn't sure if Strange would understand his vocabulary. "Something interactive like the coffee is sort of a mutual effort between me and whomever experiences it. I drew on Bruce's memories and mine to set the casting up, but he has to fill in the details like how it should feel, smell, and taste. I assume yours reminds you of hospital coffee because that's what you expected it to be the most like."

The sorcerer nodded and stroked his bearded chin, "Next time I'll remember to imagine espresso. Do you have to think about a casting, or is it like second nature to you?"

"If it's something simple and repetitive, I don't really think about it because it's become like a shorthand command. The way I like to cast is I'll make my actions part of the illusion, so I can take my time and set it up well—like the coffee. Going through the ritual of making it is much more satisfying than pulling it out of thin air. If I don't have the luxury of 'making' it, I'll keep what I do simple, but I don't like casting on the fly—unless I want to surprise someone. Otherwise, it unnerves people. I'd much rather be subtle and have some give and take like a partnership or collaboration. It's not as if I have a big audience to work with, even if it is sort of a captive one." Adam ticked people off on his fingers: "Bruce, Raven, Lila, Natasha, and now you. I'm not sure that Nyxianna counts since she initiated the vision."

"Believe me, she counts," Bruce said and shifted uneasily in his chair.

"I wouldn't call what we did a casting or a construct though. It was something different that bent time," he looked at Stephen who was listening intently to him. "Bruce didn't like this very much, but I can show you."

"Only if you take it easy," Strange said with a chuckle, but he held out his hand willingly enough. Adam reached across the table and grasped Strange's hand lightly and stroked down the palm with his thumb. He'd tried to slow the rate of transfer down, but the other man tensed as Adam's vision washed over him. "By Orion's Belt, are you all right, Adam?"

"I think I'm okay, but I'm still processing parts," he said. "Who is she and how did throwing a stone attract her?"

Strange let out a long breath that puffed his cheeks. "I don't know any of this firsthand, but as I understand it, she rules Nix, which is beyond the Nine Realms, but a protectorate of Asgard as the raven told you. When the Badoon and the Sakaarans invaded that quadrant after the destruction of the Bifrost Bridge, the planet was overwhelmed and occupied, but Nyxianna's forces were well along in the campaign to take it back when Odin's forces finally returned and insisted on 'pacifying' and occupying the planet. This did not sit well with Nyxianna or her people who felt their home had been used as a battlefield and looted by both waves of 'invaders'. The diplomacy was touch and go, but the situation is currently stable, and she reestablished control without having to go to war with Asgard. However, that doesn't mean she's forgotten anything."

Bruce and Adam took this information in for a moment until Adam finally asked, "So how would a rock I tossed off the edge here make it to her, especially if she's beyond the Nine Realms?"

"Now we're headed away from what I do know and off into conjecture, Adam. You and I both recognize you have some talent with time and space manipulation among many other things. If circumstances had been different, you might have been identified and trained properly to use them; be that as it may, you still have the raw talent to cross from here to the Psychic Plane into reality. Unfortunately, your control has yet to develop in full, so there is no way to tell exactly what you did to send a 'stone' that far."

Adam shrugged and shook his head. In other words, if he'd been born he could have gone to Hogwarts, but being 'body challenged' really put a crimp in that possibility. The image of Hulk in a school robe assisting Hagrid with the thestrals flitted through his head, but he shoved it away for later amusement. "Well, I was at the edge, hoping to make contact with you there. I felt frustrated, so I picked up a rock of my own making and threw it into the foggy void as hard as I could. I expected it to hit water, but it disappeared without a sound."

Strange shook his head, "In other words, you essentially took a piece of yourself, a construct of your own crafting, and physically threw it with the intention of it traveling as far away as possible and finding someone you wanted." The physician pushed an unruly forelock back from his forehead as he considered his words. "Adam, you may know nothing of formal spells, gestures, forms, and incantations; however, whether you intend to or not, you do indeed 'manage things on the fly' better than most magic users do with practice. The Vishanti help us all when you actually want to focus and do something."

Bruce had long since finished his coffee and was now occupying his hands by quietly running the spoon handle between his fingers. "You're theorizing he sent it there on purpose, and it was as solid as it is now when it entered our reality? I don't know. It would make more sense to me if he'd hit you with it on the Astral Plane," he said with a wry look at the mystic.

"It's a construct, a very small part of a much larger construct that probably anchored it across whatever planes it passed," Adam surmised. He finally took another drink of his coffee concoction and found the second mouthful was more palatable than the first. Bruce must have really like it at some point.

"May I see the stone?" Strange requested, and Adam handed him the object. "My, this isn't just your construct anymore, is it? The magic is very rudimentary, but so deep it has permeated it."

"Raven called it 'hearth magic', I think," Adam added. "He said it was very old."

"You're dealing with a demi-goddess, Adam. All her magic is going to be old as is some of her thinking. She may have mistaken it for either a challenge or an invitation," Strange guessed.

Adam slid his empty mug away, "I had the impression she tracked its origin down, suspecting it was a threat, but changed her mind when she saw me. I think she's been looking for something or someone for a while."

Bruce snorted a humorless laugh. "That's easy enough. She needs an heir," the physicist deduced. "That's why she was excited when you had two forms that were so similar to hers, despite you being unique, which she also seemed to like. I would guess there aren't that many eligible demi-gods around to date in her neighborhood who meet her expectations and aren't Asgardians."

"Raven seemed to think that if she touched me, she'd have control and could even take me with her somehow," Adam reported as he stared at his empty hands. "He didn't call it a glamor or a binding spell, but that's what it sounded like."

"I'm not convinced that's possible, Adam. I think she could make you want to follow her, but I'm at a loss for how she could make that happen beyond the Astral Plane."

"Don't forget that's something Raven was also prepared to offer," Bruce reminded them. "Giving Adam independence is something I've wished that I could do with science," he said with a longing look at his brother, "but the price of it would be very high for both of us, so I've not pursued it."

Adam reached across the table and squeezed Bruce's hand. "Thank you for considering it, but no, I don't want it." He'd gone over every consequence and possible side effects in his head—as he knew Bruce had—and none of them were true wins for both of them. The segregation after the accident had nearly unhinged them both. They had seen what losing JARVIS had done to Tony even if it had created a being as wonderful and full of hope as Vision. What Bruce and he had was deeper than the Gamma in their bones, and Adam refused to abandon his responsibility to help control it.

They all three sat lost in their thoughts for a few minutes. The sorcerer bit on a knuckle as he considered something. "Tell me, Adam, are you a construction or a casting or something else?"

Adam considered that for a moment, "I'm going to say something else. This isn't easy to explain, so bear with me. I'm grounded here in what stands in for Bruce's imagination or dream space. I can exist on the Astral or Psychic Plane as a Projection and maybe as a kind of solid construct, too, but it's outside my 'realm' so I probably can't do things there that I can do here." He looked from Strange to his brother, trying to think of a way to explain his own composition and use of energy. "For example, Stephen, you're an Astral Projection or Form here and so is Bruce, but as long as you're here, I make you substantial and solid. That's how we can sit here and drink coffee. Both of you could actually travel to the Astral Plane in your Spiritual Forms as a type of ectoplasm, a bit like a ghost's. That's not quite the same as what I use here. I pull energy and make substance from the Gamma, in part to keep it in check, and its energy supplements my psychic energies while here, but I don't know if the Gamma will transfer elsewhere or if I'm limited to only my own psychic energy. I imagine I have my limits when not in my home, but it's not like I've been on the Astral Plane enough to test that hypothesis and be certain."

"That actually makes a good deal of sense, Adam. I had wondered if you tapped into the Gamma or if there was some other source of energy to create all of this," acknowledged the physician. I hope we'll have more time soon to talk physiology and psychobiology because now I'm incredibly curious how everything works together."

"Join the club," Bruce said. "We'll have a membership drive once the Agreements are complete and put to rest. Until then, everything is mostly on hold."

Strange nodded, "Believe me, I understand. Now, let me ask another hard question, how psychically secure are you here in your 'realm'?" Strange asked.

Adam quickly replied, "I have what you'd consider basic wards and psychic defenses, but I know once people have found their way here, I tend to have an open connection to them, so the welcome mat is out, so to speak, for those people. Otherwise, I'd know if something was trying to invade and confront it directly."

Bruce looked at Adam, "I guess that explains Lila's visits?"

Now it was Adam's turn to shift uncomfortably in his chair. "The first time she found me was as my younger self sleeping in the construct of her family's house that you made for me, Bruce. I reworked the foundation, thinking there must have been a flaw since it was your first attempt, but I've never been absolutely sure how she made her way in except that it was a familiar place and we'd made some sort of connection earlier in reality. When I was Hulk and we were talking, I told her my real name, and we felt something almost like a static discharge. Our hearts synched for a few moments, and I knew I'd be able to find her if I needed. I suppose that might work both ways. I explained to her we wouldn't be meeting like that again, but in December she was really distressed, so I visited her in her dreams to make sure she was okay. We just played and talked it out. If Lila needs me, I feel obligated to be there or at least communicate with her. I'm fairly limited when it comes to doing that in reality, so we dreamed together."

Strange couldn't help but smile fondly, "You've soul or spirit bonded with her, Adam. That's not a bad thing, even if it is a bit awkward. I would bet she thought you were in distress the first time and came to your aid as soon as she could, just like you did for her."

Bruce nodded, "Lila had just seen you in pain as we transformed, so she probably had to confirm you were okay for herself. Appearing as a boy her age was probably the cherry on top for her, so now she's imagining you as her super-secret best friend." He bit his lower lip to keep from grinning because he could see that revelation bothered his brother.

Adam flushed quite red and stared into the sticky dregs of his empty mug, "I should probably apologize to Laura and Clint, but I don't think I can break the bond."

"Don't try," Stephen recommended. "Just let the psychic connection stay dormant by not using it from your end. It's a shame she can't just pick up a phone and talk to you, but you could try the really old fashion thing and write or text."

Now Bruce cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, "Oh, be careful. She's not that far away from being a preteen, and I know whose phone and fingers you'd end up using. Unless Laura or Clint suggest it, let's please not go there. We all trust you, Adam, but there are just too many things that could go wrong and look improper from the outside."

"I know," Adam said resignedly. "I guess I might as well add that bonding with you, Bruce, is a given and Natasha isn't that far behind. We've walked into each other's dream spaces."

Bruce knew how restlessly Natasha slept, so this news made him pause. "Is that such a good idea considering her proclivity for nightmares?"

"I was able to help her out of one, but I hadn't intended to be there for that reason. I was checking boundaries and went right through one into her space. A bond helps explain why," he added quietly.

"Well, Adam, with whom else have you become this close?" Strange asked with his brows raised a bit.

Adam looked at Bruce who sighed and nodded his head in wordless agreement. "I'm pretty certain I connected with Nyxianna, but I'm not certain to what degree."

"Do you think you could turn her away?" Strange asked.

Adam put his spoon in his empty mug and slid it to the middle of the table with Bruce's mug. "I don't honestly know. If she were hostile, I'd have no trouble slamming the door shut, but she's not presented herself that way."

"She seemed more curious than hostile to me, too." Bruce added, "I'm not saying I want her running unchecked through either of our dreamscapes. It's better to keep the sanctity of boarders intact for the present, but if she's respectful of you and your space and nowhere near as pushy as Raven, use your best judgment, Adam. If you get in trouble, I'm always your backup."

"Be that as it may, Adam, my advice is to avoid close contact if you possibly can. She may come in an appealing package, but she's still quite powerful and alien in her thinking and customs. Don't trifle with her, my friend. Do you understand?" Strange asked him directly.

Adam looked the Sorcerer Supreme in the eye, "Of course, Stephen."

Strange held his gaze for another full second before relaxing, "I don't think that I have any further questions, gentlemen. Do you have any left for me?"

"Not unless you want to put your sleuthing skills to work and tell us who Ross is in cahoots with at the moment," Bruce suggested.

"That answer will take more time than I have to uncover it, but you already have better brain power to solve that mystery at your disposal than I might add. Take Deep Throat's advice and follow the money plus motives," Strange advised.

"Ever the cryptic one," Bruce laughed as he stood up and collected the used mugs and spoons to take to the sink.

Adam and Stephen stood up and shook hands. "Might I ask a favor of you?" the older man asked.

"Sure."

"May I have a rock or another object you've made to take with me? I'd like to study it," said Strange.

"I have plenty of rocks and soil samples galore outside, but there are a couple of nicer specimens on the windowsill." Adam reached past Bruce's shoulder and picked up a rounded piece of quartz and handed the walnut-sized stone to the physician.

"This will do nicely."

"Would you like a casting as well?" Adam asked.

"If you have one to spare."

"Give him that bottle of United Dairy Farmers' Chocolate Milk you've kept hanging around the fridge," Bruce suggested.

"I was going to make a something else," Adam said as he gave his brother a sideways look of disproval.

"All right, Maestro, go for it," Bruce said with a chuckle.

Adam rubbed his hands together to gather the heat and a bit of Gamma before he breathed into his palms and a cluster of perfect lilac blossoms with their dark green heart-shaped leaves appeared. Their sweet, fruity perfume hung in the air for a moment before growing subtler. "May I?" Adam offered, and Strange nodded his permission to slip the sprig into his suit's front breast pocket. "I hope they make it," he wished.

"I'll do my best to keep them intact," Stephen assured him.

"It's been good to see you," Bruce said as he efficiently wiped the last of the dishes dry and hung up the towel. He shook Strange's hand and they both leaned in for an embrace.

"If there are any changes on the larger game board, I'll let you know if you're affected," the sorcerer said. He tilted his head to look at Adam, "I'm counting on you to stay out of trouble and get your brother home safe and sound."

"I will. We're almost down to 38 hours and counting."

"Then I'll show myself out, gentleman," he said with a nod and let himself out the backdoor and was gone.

"Thanks for doing the dishes, Bruce. You know that's totally unnecessary, but it was still thoughtful of you."

"You're welcome. Got to keep the hands busy, Bro. Come here," he said and pulled Adam close with his right hand on the back of his brother's neck so they touched foreheads. "Look, I know she's going to be back, and I can't stop you from seeing her. Please just promise me not to rush into anything before you really know her and understand what she wants and why." He patted Adam's shoulder as he let him go.

"That's just it. She showed me possible futures and in some of them we're together. Most of them we weren't, but in a few there were children that I didn't get to help raise. I don't understand how I would ever let that happen and accept it willingly, but the really weird thing is that I was able to be with her at all. I'm attracted by the idea of being with her, of having children, but what's bothering me most is the purely selfish motivation to find out how I could possibly be in the real world."

"Having mixed motivations is perfectly normal, Adam. If you didn't have them, I'd worry about you more. Frankly, I would love to know the same thing because short of making you a synthetic body, I've not come up with anything remotely workable yet."

Adam finally smiled. "I'm sure Vis would enjoy the company, but I have no plans to leave you alone with the Gamma and other shared responsibilities. All I want to know is how it's possible."

"Take it nice and slow," Bruce told him and patted Adam's shoulder again. "My alarm has gone off."

"Go. Everything here will be fine. Tell Tony to break a leg."

"I will." Bruce smiled and faded.

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. His immediate impulse was to find a body of water and test out why Strange had asked to avoid it. However, he was fighting his instincts, and he felt tired. He wondered if the soaking tub was large enough to count as a body of water, but decided if he was going to do it, he ought to go big. When he opened his eyes, he was standing on one of the large flat-topped boulders along the shore of Tony's lake. He stared down into the clear water's glassy depths to the rocky bottom, but he saw nothing unusual. After several minutes, he sat down and took off his shoes and socks, so he could dangle his feet in the water. Adam rolled up his jeans a few turns before he stuck his feet into the lake. It was quite cold and he shivered despite the warm sunlight. He finally pulled out the stone with the markings from his pocket, and it occurred to him they should have asked Stephen about Yggdrasil. He turned the stone over and stroked the markings on both sides, surprised at how warm it was.

"I hope you don't intend to throw that again. I still have a bruise from the last time." She was dressed in looser fitting clothes of some soft woven fabric of dark royal blue. Her well-muscled arms were bare and so were her feet as she hovered over the water. She came closer and closer until she was a few feet from him.

"I didn't give you permission to come here," he said quietly.

"As long as I don't set my foot down, I'm not trespassing."

"If I gave you permission, what would you do?" he asked.

"I would sit and talk with you if that would be agreeable to you."

"Do you plan to take me from my home."

"No, I have no plans, especially if you want to stay."

"Will you swear upon what you find holy that you will not harm me, mine, or anyone else here or on my planet."

"I so swear upon my life by the Light of the Vishanti. No harm will come to you or any of these by my will or by my hand."

He felt nothing but truth in her with a bit of growing excitement bubbling beneath as they approached a threshold. "I grant you Nyxianna permission to sit and talk to me," he said with his lopsided grin. "I would like to know you better."

"I accept your invitation, Adam who was Guardian who was Echo and uses the names Hulk and Banner." She stepped onto the rock near him and gracefully sat down just outside his arm's reach. Her long pale hair was tied back, and the bright glow of her eyes was contained so that he could see they were a dark blue-gray like a stormy sea. Her skin was still golden bronze, but he noticed warmer pink tones beneath it and a scattering of light freckles across the bridge of her nose and down her finely toned forearms. It took him a moment to realize she no longer had the curling horns. "Where do we start?" she asked.

"Tell me about your family," he said.

"This may take some time," she warned him as a shy smile touched her lips.

"I'm listening," he encouraged her. "I want to know as much as you're willing to tell me."

She skimmed her toes in the water and took a deep breath. "Perhaps I should start with my grandsires . . ."

End Notes: I'm really hoping I don't have to revise this after _Doctor Strange_ opens because I put in way too much time researching the magic, mystic, and cosmic elements and terminology for this chapter.

Hope you liked the Bruce x Natasha cuddles. Our boy is growing up, even if he takes hot cocoa in his coffee! What do you think about Nyxianna the dragon lady?

There's a bunch I'd like to talk about. Just bring something up!

 **End Notes:** I'm really hoping I don't have to revise this after _Doctor Strange_ opens because I put in way too much time researching the magic, mystic, and cosmic elements and terminology for this chapter.

Hope you liked the Bruce x Natasha cuddles. Our boy is growing up, even if he takes hot cocoa in his coffee! What do you think about Nyxianna the dragon lady?

There's a bunch I'd like to talk about in the comments. Just bring something up!


	54. Chapter 54

**Summary:** Stephen makes an important discovery. Adam and Nyxianna have a talk, which leads to introducing Hulk to her avatar. Fighting leads to . . . much more mature negotiations.

 **Notes:** Please send some prayers and healing thoughts Autumn_Froste's way because she's been sick. Any errors or problems here are all mine, mine, mine! (Tell me if you spot one and I'll fix it!) Hey, it's a Hulk-sized chapter for your enjoyment. Yes, we earn the mature rating, but maybe not in the way you thought we might. You're welcome! I'm really interested in what you think of the characters.

 **Chapter 54: Warriors and Thieves**

Dr. Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, was studying a lilac sprig in a bud vase. He had just dispersed a time spell and closed the Eye of Agamotto after watching the clusters of pale lavender blooms flower, fade, wither, and be replaced several times over as the sprig itself rooted and filled up the vase.

He pushed himself away from the table and stood up before he restlessly started to pace the wooden floors of his Sanctum's Library. When he'd arrived back home inside his corporal form from his visit with the brothers Banner, he'd been pleasantly surprised his "samples" had successfully made the journey with him. He'd fully expected the rock and flower sprig Adam had given him to discorporate or at least be significantly degraded and quickly collapse, but here he was staring at them on his worktable, and they were as stable as if they'd come from his own atrium or greenhouse. In fact, the rock had remained unchanged even after two century's worth of years passing under the Eye's spell. The sprig was begging to be planted in soil, but he wasn't sure he had the nerve to do it without a much closer examination of the plant cutting he'd seen Adam create hardly an hour ago between the palms of his hands.

The good news was that both objects obeyed the same laws of physics as normal reality, so they were not inherently dangerous or unpredictable. The perplexing part was what to tell Adam because Stephen was certain he now had enough evidence to confirm Adam's "mental space" was a true reality, a bona fide dimension and not just an abstract non-corporal place in his brother's head. The more the sorcerer considered this discovery, the more he wanted to examine Adam himself. Granted, Adam Banner was an anomaly if he'd ever seen one, but Stephen had categorized him as a spirit of intellect, something akin to a ghost, lingering in his brother's cells and inhabiting a corner of the genius's mind unless he was needed to manifest and be the will and intellect for the Hulk. Strange had considered him a symbiont rather than a parasite because Adam appeared to take nothing from Bruce as far as any of them could tell, but Bruce had absorbed at least part of his twin's cells in utero, and those cells were the anchor if not the home for Adam's presence. Just like Bruce, he should have died but through some adaptation he'd survived.

Strange had a sudden thought, so he quit pacing and turned on his heel before searching one of his shelves of newer tomes. "Ah, here it is," he murmured aloud as he pulled a volume off the shelf. "I've been wanting to read _Physical Cosmology and Dimensional Inflation in Applied Constructions_ for a bit, so now might be a good time for a skim," Stephen decided and sat down in a nearby armchair to read.

((o))

"So that's why your aunt chose you to train as her regent instead of your brothers?" Adam asked as he trailed a bare foot in the clear cool lake and smiled at Nyxianna. They were still sitting on the sizeable flat rock with a little distance between them, but they both had become more and more relaxed with each other. She was a good storyteller, and he was enjoying her company. She nodded her fair-haired head in agreement and continued as her family narrative neared the present.

"Correct, neither of the twins were adept at diplomacy without a weapon in their hands," she said matter-of-factly. "They weren't happy at first, but it wasn't long until they saw it was difficult work that didn't suite their abilities. Within a few days, both supported the decision. They chose the full military path and that has worked out for everyone. It's a decade later and they're good generals and that's been invaluable. We were in exile from Nix for less than half of one of your Earth years, but it helped unite us as a family and as citizens." Adam noted the look of defiance in her eyes and the set of her jaw. He wasn't sure what he liked more, her boldness and energy or the subtle humor and affection she had for her family and people. He noted she made a conscious effort to relax her muscles after getting a bit worked up and took a deep breath. "Enough about 'Nyxianna' and old family squabbles and politics. She's a ruler and a politician. I'm just 'Anna."

Adam smiled and finally extended his hand to her. "I'm pleased to meet you, 'Anna. I'm just Adam." It had taken them over an hour and a half to finally get to this point, but he did feel like he had a basic grasp of her background and her mindset now. From here forward he hoped to know her as an individual better.

She leaned over and shook his right hand with hers. She had a firm grip and he noticed that her hand was callused while the nails were cut short and perfectly shaped. "My, you have warm hands," she said as she hung on for an extra second, obviously getting some sort of information from the physical contact. Raven's warning flitted through his mind, but he instantly dismissed it as superstitious propaganda. "Tell me about your family, Adam. I know you have a brother, but you're not entirely like him," she observed.

"Yes, that's Bruce. We're actually twins, too, but I'm fairly unique in some fundamental respects." Adam knew what he was about to say would either end this pleasant little tea party or take them over another threshold as they got to know each other. "I don't have a proper body because it apparently died in utero. My brother absorbed some of it and my consciousness survived. I thought I was just part of him at first, but eventually I realized I was separate. I decided my purpose was to help him as much as I could." Adam paused to see if 'Anna was ready to make a swift exit or put him in a straightjacket; instead, she nodded encouragingly for him to go on.

"He, uh, we had a pretty rough childhood. Our father worked as a government scientist and contractor. He was a nuclear physicist who designed weapons, so it's no surprise he was exposed to some dangerous levels of radiation. When Bruce started building and making things no child should be intelligent enough to do, our father saw that as monstrous rather than gifted and rejected him. Our father was a violent man, and he killed our mother in front of us when she tried to leave him. We were eight."

"I am so sorry Adam," 'Anna said, looking horrified. "This sort of brutality cannot be the norm in your society."

"No, it certainly isn't. He was eventually imprisoned, and he died there. Our Aunt Susan raised Bruce until he left for school. He became a physicist, too, and eventually worked on a project that was meant to help people survive radiation poisoning, but he was pressured to produce results, and there was an accident that exposed him to lethal levels of gamma radiation. We're not completely sure how it happened, but I was able to shield Bruce and keep him physically together. Unfortunately, the price was he forgot me and when his adrenaline and heart rate spiked, it triggered a physical change in him."

"The green ogre?" she asked. "I've been told he's the one who taught the Lord of Lies some manners."

"Yes, the Hulk. The transformation puts me in control, but at the beginning it was so painful I could barely function, even after I was used to it. We were at war in Bruce's head for almost a decade before Bruce finally remembered me again. Stephen Strange who was just here helped. It's been about nine months since we've made peace. Now, Bruce is going to marry Natasha, and they're going to have a child." He thought about mentioning his role in this, but decided against it. "Well, anyway, now you can see how peculiar my circumstances are. For all practical purposes, I'm trapped here except when I'm temporarily the Big Guy. Some prospect for a lover I've turned out to be. I'm sorry, 'Anna." He thought she'd be diplomatic about it, but he was pretty sure she'd lose interest in him now. At least it had been a nice conversation.

"Do you think your condition is chronic?" she asked with an eyebrow cocked.

"Yes, I have no corporeal body of my own. Bruce has brought up building me a synthetic one, but that's going to take time." The look she gave him was hard to read. He wasn't sure if maybe she was going to go for the restraints or was she actually going to laugh at him?

"Then what do you call this?" she asked as she quickly punched him in the upper right arm before he could react.

"Owwwch! What was that . . . ?" he sputtered in shock.

"Look at your arm, Love," she said.

To his surprise, it really did hurt. Not like a transformation, but like Thor had given him more than the usual love tap. He pulled the arm of his t-shirt up and saw that his upper arm was red and beginning to swell a bit. He could feel the contusion beneath the skin thickening as the activated blood platelets released their clotting agent and started the process that would be marked by a deep bruise. As Hulk it wouldn't take that long to heal, but as himself it . . . it had never happened before. He looked up and 'Anna was grinning at him impishly like she'd just pushed his reset button: Boop!

"How did you do this?" he asked in complete puzzlement.

"All _I_ did was hit you. You've been doing the real work yourself, apparently for a long time." His logical mind was putting the facts into line, but emotionally he was ready to overload. This could not be true! She decided to slow things down. "You're going to have a bruise. That's how it works when you have a corporal body. It will hurt, but the swelling will go down, and the mark will heal up in a few days," 'Anna said. "Would you rather I hit you in that handsome face? I think not!" She emphasized her point by firmly patting his cheek with her open hand. The solid sound and feel of flesh on flesh reverberated through him.

"No, you know what I mean," he said. "This has never happened before. It can't happen. Not here. Not to me . . ."

"No _can'ts_. No _nevers_. You didn't want to brag about what you did for your brother, yet you find it hard to believe you could have healed or remade your own body over time. You engineered both processes here in your space, and what you've accomplished is real in every sense." He still looked like he wasn't processing it. "Don't tell me you've surprised yourself, Adam Hulk Banner. You're not the only one in your family with gifts."

"But this would mean I'm physically REAL. Do you know what this means?" He was getting close to an emotional overload.

She leaned over and grabbed the front of his t-shirt in her right fist, pulling him close. "It means we can do this." Adam instinctively caught on to her move in time, and he angled his head so their lips met comfortably. He braced with his right hand so the momentum didn't make him fall on top of her. By God, she was strong! 'Anna's lips were full and soft as they moved over his. He slipped his left arm around her waist and pulled her close as he opened his mouth to her. She smelled of sweet wood smoke and old fashion roses and spices he didn't know the names for yet. She eagerly darted her tongue past his lips and teeth and then drew back to playfully nip at his lower lip. They both giggled, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her on top of him. He was hungry for her kisses, practically starved, and she didn't hold back. His mind was still reeling, but parts of him were ecstatic. He'd felt his body respond with arousal before, yet those times were faint echoes compared to what he was feeling for her now. He wanted her. He wanted to roll her over and find out what she looked like without the robes. He wanted to touch her in so many places and so many ways with his actual mouth and fingers and . . . Yet, he pulled back. Bruce's plea to slow down and find out what she wanted and why kept him from going further. Their kissing slowed and they simply breathed together then came the pleasant realization that their hearts were in sync. He'd been afraid he might lose the ability to connect in this way if he were corporal. "I want you, 'Anna, but I need time to take this in. I'm not at all sure how it happened. I'm not even sure how everything works."

She shifted off Adam and lay on the rock beside him, propped on her side. "I understand, Adam. Take some time and get to know this new body of yours. I can only imagine what a shock it is, especially while you're away from home." She rested her right hand on his chest. "Your brother gives good advice; you should follow it. I'm not going to lie to you. Bruce is right about my situation—I need an heir to provide stability. I can't choose an Asguardian paramour because that will give them an excuse to annex and reoccupy us when we are already too much under their thumb. I have no interest in the Badoon or any of the races of Sakaar, red, gray, or otherwise for the same reasons. The Skrulls and Kree are just as bad. The idea of mating with blood relatives repulses me and, thank Oshtur, most of them, too!"

They both looked at each other and laughed at her joke. Adam shifted to his side, so he could face her and they could talk. "Tell me, 'Anna, are you a telepath? You've been picking information out of my head since we met."

"Sorry, I'm not used to being around someone who is so 'open'. I can hear what you're thinking near the surface. You're also very unguarded when you want to communicate, so you're pretty easy to read."

He nodded. He wasn't around people enough to have good filters for what came out of his mouth, much less what came bubbling up that was never said. "Remind me not to play poker with you," he noted wryly.

"I could work with you on that if you like," she said. "The readability, not whatever 'poker' is. That you'd have to teach me."

"It's a card game on which you gamble. Bruce has used it as a way to raise money a few times. He says it doesn't feel like honest work, but he always won and moved on before he caught anyone's attention. Too much security at casinos and such to do it for long. He always gave himself a shave and a haircut right after we left, too."

"We have gamboling on Nix, so I think I understand why he'd do that," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"So how do I get a better grasp on my 'readability'?"

"Number one, you work on the poker face."

"You did it again."

"I know. I can't help it. However, I'm not going to apologize because I need your vocabulary to explain things. Think of your face as a mask, a façade to protect you by filtering what others see. Don't look completely blank like that. It draws too much attention, too. What you want to do is control what you show."

"Okay, this is what Natasha does, but she goes a lot further and makes complete personas."

"As a spy, that would have to be second nature for her, yes. You won't need as big of a facial vocabulary as she does, but study the ones suitable for pleasantries. Once you have that mastered, you work on a mental firewall."

"Do diversions count?"

"Yes, they can be very effective. Thinking mantras or other repeated words and ideas work."

"Imagery?"

"Yes, of course . . . Oh, you're a quick learner. So you play a musical instrument—the piano, and you sing . . . What do you mean by 'blue'?"

"It means sad. It can mean other things, but in this case the singer would rather be sad missing his love than be happy with another person."

She studied him as he imagined playing and singing for her. What had she found on this distant world? Something rare and beautiful, and he was breaking her heart already. Was he going to be the key to the future or her complete undoing?

"I need to show you something, Adam Banner. I'm going to be as honest as I'm able. May I?" She held out her right hand, and he let her touch his left temple and stroke down his forehead with her thumb. She was giving him cultural information. He saw the people of Nix whom she served living in extended families with parents, grandparents, and siblings in sprawling households. His heart warmed, but then she showed him the long line of rulers and regents who were champions and defenders who led the planet and all of them, whether male or female, were expected to produce an heir, yet, remain devoted solely to the state and their position of leadership. Not a one had an official mate. Some didn't even take on the role of parent for their children. Adam felt 'Anna's sorrow. She hadn't wanted to tell him this—not yet, but she couldn't bring herself not to inform him as they were being drawn closer.

Adam shook his head. "No. No," he found himself saying to her out of a shared sense of loss. "I don't know what I want, but . . . Please tell me what you want, 'Anna."

"I don't know anymore, Adam. I know what my duties are, but I want more. I know I want to raise my child, but I look at you, I listen to your thoughts, and I want to see if there could be more between us. I was going to ask if you'd be willing to act as what you'd call a donor, but I'm not sure now."

He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. "Why are we moving so fast? I'm pretty impulsive, but I get the feeling you're not, 'Anna. I appreciate that you're laying your cards out on the table, but why choose me in particular? I can't be the only male between here and Nix with acceptable genes."

She pursed her lips and considered how best to explain herself. "The number three has a strong significance in my culture as do other symbols and certain energies. I've touched minds with you several times now and our bodies have touched, so I know that we're compatible in spirit and mind. Our dragons have met. Our true selves are here now. I think our third forms will be compatible, too. You've seen a version of mine."

"With the horns, shining eyes, sharp teeth, and overwhelming feeling of dread? Yes, we've met," he said with his lopsided smile.

"You've not even seen her full stature with all her charms," she replied with good humor. "That's the Goddess whom people flee or fall down and worship, but not you, Adam."

"I was pretty awestruck," he said truthfully.

"But you weren't afraid of her."

"Well, when you're also a monster, and he has you're back, it's not such a brave thing to stand your ground."

She sat up and crossed her legs as she faced him. "Adam, my dear, you deflect too much. That was no minor spell—it has sent legions of warriors running in panic and terror, and I'm being rather modest. She's part of me, but she's very demanding of suitors because she is the aspect of me that is the Goddess. When my aunt died, the Goddess chose me as her vessel. She is the champion and protector of all Nix. If our avatars are compatible, it's culturally and spiritually significant to my people. It would mean political stability and give me a mandate to lead them without bowing down to outsiders."

He nodded with understanding. That was a good reason for her to pursue him—he might be her magic trifecta for a mate. "You think a goddess would get along with me as Hulk?" he asked with an amused smile.

"Bring him out and we'll know," she challenged him. "I can't guarantee what will happen because I'm only marginally present when the Goddess takes over, but from what I have heard from others and learned from you, your ogre self stands a better chance of impressing her than I've found before. We won't know unless you're will to give it a try."

"I'm not sure I can even manifest the form now," he said. "The rules may have completely changed."

She smiled, "Look inside. See if you can feel him."

Adam closed his eyes. Now that he knew he had a body, he could feel more and more differences. When he inhabited Bruce's body, there was always an insulated, fuzzy feeling around the edges. Now he recognized a new preciseness and sharpness of detail to what he felt. The gloves and gauntlets were off, and he sensed the Gamma slept inside him, angry and resentful as ever, but tired out from the transformation and the energies he was syphoning off to keep his own fatigue at bay. He realized that like Bruce he could now make use of the Liminal state, and that possibility excited him. Was Bruce now free of the Gamma? Adam just didn't know. What he was certain of was that transitioning was still going to hurt. In fact, he expected transforming was going to hurt a lot now, but he was willing to give it a try. He knew his eyes were starting to glow when he opened them. "I've found him. Are you sure about this, 'Anna?"

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," she said with a wink. "If they are compatible and don't kill each other, we'll make plans from there."

Adam nodded in agreement, "If they're willing." He stood up and quickly pulled off his shirt and jeans. He was glad he'd thought of wearing the uniform pants prototype instead of boxers, but he could see their revealing tightness had the potential to get embarrassing. Adam jumped down off the rock and walked to the nearby stretch of sand where Tony sometimes strung up the volleyball net at the real lake. He turned around to find 'Anna had stripped down to what might pass for undergarments on Nix. It looked more like a wrestling singlet with a bare midriff than anything else he could recall, and it was the same deep blue as her outer robes. She finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail and lithely jumped down and followed him. 'Anna was grinning as she stepped close to him. Adam was average height. He was guessing 5' 10", but he was fairly sure 'Anna was almost the same height as Natasha, maybe 5' 2" at the most. The other thing the two women had in common was both had muscles and were in excellent shape. Natasha's lighter frame didn't flaunt her strength, but 'Anna's shoulders were broad and her arms and calves looked like she could wrestle him to the ground without breaking a sweat. Adam had no misconceptions about his own body's fitness. It was all new and strange territory for him.

"I should warn you, Nyxianna can be very aggressive, much more than what you saw before when I was mostly in charge. She's fought off two suitors who were much larger than her and intimidated a lot more than that. Oh, and whatever you do, don't call her 'Nyxie' unless you really want to piss her off."

Adam snorted, "Family nickname?"

"Yes, my brothers' idea. It works really well, too, if that's the desired effect."

"Is she an entirely separate person from you?"

"I'm in control up to a point, but she's autonomous from me and she will take over during a fight. I have some influence, but you'll be dealing with her."

"Good to know. I've been under acceptable control for at least nine months, but pain and anger can really mess up my judgment. If I'm not in control, be sure to call him Hulk."

"Okay, let's see your ogre, Adam."

He sat down in the sand cross-legged and centered himself by concentrating on his physical core. If he was intellect and the dragon was spirit, then Hulk had to be the body while they all three were connected through the heart. Since he had the choice now, he chose to transform slowly for maximum control. The fire kindled in his spine and the long bones before he sensed it in his blood. He felt it pump further through him with each heartbeat. Cells exploded and reformed into structures larger and different. The cell clusters that once were all that were left of his physical body took on their new roles as muscles, bones, and nerves, pulling on something dark to complete the process. The Gamma stirred as it gave up more energy for the progression, but it resettled comfortably back to its own dreams like a mastiff on a hearthrug. Adam could feel the fire in his blood intensify, and he arched his back as the ripping, tearing, and rebuilding overrode his normal defenses, and he felt his control slip as the process surged ahead to completion. He gasped, sucking in lungs full of air. Everything hurt and burned. At some point he'd pitched forward on the sand and caught his weight on his forearms. There was an irritating buzz like cicadas in his head, and he shook it, trying to get it to clear. In a moment, the noise subsided, and he opened his eyes to look up and try to focus.

"I can feel how it hurts," she said, standing back about 10 yards.

"Like a . . . It's really not pleasant," Adam rumbled. He stayed on his knees, but he leaned back to get a better look at her. Rather than showing fear or horror or pity, she grinned with excitement to see his other self in the flesh.

As 'Anna stepped forward, her eyes flashed blue fire and she grew taller and broader and her muscles swelled. Ivory like horns sprouted from her forehead and curled into circles before turning dark. She smiled and her teeth had grown sharp. The glow in her eyes subsided, but they were a good bit darker than before. Adam stood up. He was close to Hulk's normal height of just below nine feet, and Nyxianna barely tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. He thought she was still beautiful in this form, but if anything 'Anna had understated the waves of aggression and power that emanated from her. He had to admit that part of him found that extremely attractive, especially while in this body, but he was relatively certain she'd rather fight him right now than kiss him. Sure enough, as he dusted the sand off his forearms, she sneered at him, "This is the boy who beat that runt Loki Laufeyson?"

"With one hand and after killing three Chitauri behemoths and their wretched warriors," he said without trying to sound overly arrogant about it.

She still snorted her disapproval, but she didn't argue the point. "I see she's picked another pretty toy to court me, but you're no primping lothario. Fight me and we'll see if the third time will be enough for her to give up on this idiocy or if you are my match, the 'three in one' foretold."

Great, he was up against some prophecy about which he still had almost zero knowledge. "Hand to hand then. No weapons. No magic."

"Keep your hands away from the tender parts," she sneered.

He nodded his head in agreement, and she rammed him in the chest with her horned head. Having sparred with Natasha and Logan, he half expected that surprise move and pivoted back with his right leg to deflect some of the impact of the blow. He used her momentum to give her a shove in the back with his left hand as she came around. It wasn't a pretty move, but it made her miss her grappling hold meant to grab him around the waist.

Adam decided to use his weight and momentum as she lunged and came down with his left shoulder into her back. The spray of sand she wildly backhanded in his direction hit him harmlessly across the ribs, but she was able to get her arms and knees underneath her to brace herself as his shoulder skidded off her, and he rolled past her onto the sand. Nyxianna pounced as his face met the soft ground, but he'd managed to get his hands under him and pulled her own bridging technique on her. She rode him like a wrestler and tried reaching around underneath his arms and grabbing behind his head to put him in what Natasha had told him was a full Nelson submission hold. He was not enjoying being "goddess handled." Two could certainly play a bit dirty. Adam arched his back and slammed his head backward into her jaw. He pushed her hands away, so she couldn't get a better grip on him. Yet, she managed to lock her arms around his waist and put her weight and legs into throwing him over on his back. When that didn't work from either side, she started to go after his ankles and knees.

At that point, he'd had about enough of wallowing in the sand, so Adam broke her hold and stood up, turning as he rose so he faced her. She tried to rush him and grapple him once more, but he was looking for that move, too. "Time to get cleaned up, Dearest," he said as he grabbed her around the shoulders and launched them both into the lake. They landed about chest deep in the cool water, and she came up mad and sputtering. Adam laughed, which in hindsight he realized was not the appropriate thing to do. Nyxianna growled at him and closed the distance between them with a leaping Captain America-style move that was meant to connect with his jaw in a roundhouse punch. Adam partially blocked it, but she still snapped his head to the side. The woman landed several rabbit punches that didn't do much for his ribs or his air intake. Ticked off as he was getting, Adam stuck to blocking and counter punching as she kept up a barrage of blows. He really wanted to stay under control in this situation without calling on his anger because he didn't want to hurt her, just impress upon her he was capable and prove he was stronger of course. As tough and skilled as she was, he had no doubt he could outlast her.

The not-so-nice voice at the back of his head suggested he should probably just deck her or use the concussive finger snap to take her down, but he didn't want to leave any doubt in her mind that he'd beaten her conclusively and deserved her respect. She finally went for a big left hook, and he caught her by the wrist and spun her around so her back was to him. Adam wrapped his arms across her chest, pinning her to him. It was a dance move Natasha had taught Bruce, but he wasn't about to tell this beautiful force of nature that. He strode several steps deeper into the water as she struggled, doing her best to break his nose with her head or unsportingly wrack him with a foot or knee, until the water was up to her chin. "Have you had enough?" he asked. Her answer was a growl and an attempt to bite his arm. "Very well, my sweet Lady, don't hesitate to tell me when you are ready to quit," he told her and stepped off the rock ledge and into the deep blue-green hole he knew was in front of them.

His strategy was simple: he knew he didn't need to breathe, but he was pretty sure she did since he'd tied them into the physics of this reality. Adam fully expected her to try and fake him out since that seemed to fit the tone of her playbook. He counted as their dense bodies sank, and they reached the bottom at ten. He jumped and kicked, so they were launched out of the water and landed back in the shallows. It was quite dramatic what with the splash and backwash. He had to give her credit when she tried one more good kick at his crotch just as they landed. Fortunately, momentum was in his balls' favor, and he gave her a good hard squeeze just to let her know that wasn't going to work.

"Hey, that was fun!" he enthused. "Let's do it again, my sweet. You want to do it again, right?" That's when she wretched up the water. If that was a fake-out, it was a damn fine one. "Okay, I'm going to assume that your silence on this point is an admission I have won, and you're going to quit trying to emasculate me or make me sing soprano." She gave no response except to go more limp. He felt her breathing, but he thought it was better to check. He leapt to the shore and laid her on the soft grass, which grew in that spot. He felt the pulse in her neck and it was strong. He gently rolled her onto her side, and she finally coughed again and more water came up. "Earth and water don't mix that well, huh?" he asked quietly as he leaned back on his heels. Without thinking about it, he was stroking her back, encouraging her to recover. He didn't even realize he was doing it till she opened her eyes and gave him a "What the fuck are you doing?" look. He took his hand away and shrugged apologetically.

"Two out of three?" she whispered hoarsely and half grinned at him through her wet, loosened hair.

He stroked his chin. "I'm going to say NOPE! No callbacks or do-overs either," he told her. "And no touching me below the waist again unless it's in a loving way because, Lady, you cheat something awful."

"I said no _hands_ and I didn't use hands," Nyxianna said indignantly. She sat up without letting him help. She stared at her hands, adjusting to the fact that he'd bested her. She'd never been beaten, so it was a bitter pill to force down. "I suppose now you'll want your boon," she stated sullenly.

"Uh, I had no idea that was part of the deal. Is it something of my choice?" he asked for clarity's sake.

"Yes, but most males want some sort of sexual favor when they've bested a female."

"What? No, let's just put that choice off the table for now. I'll think about it. I mean, I don't expect that from you."

"You don't want me then?!" she huffed with a puzzled look, unsure what to make of his response.

"To the contrary . . ." he sat down a bit warily beside her, "may I offer _you_ a gift?" She looked at him skeptically. "I want to do this for you. Please trust me."

"All right, I'm trusting you. Just remember I can still throw you quite a long way, son of Earth."

He gave her as reassuring of a smile as he could in this form and shifted his position so he was sitting by her feet. This usually worked for Bruce, so maybe it would work for him. "Let me see your right foot first." She still looked highly skeptical, but set her foot in his hands. He gently stroked down her bronze calf to her heel and tenderly kneaded it, pressing on the pressure points before he shifted to her instep. He'd "watched" Bruce do this for Natasha enough to have a pretty good idea how to please a person. It was nice to interact with someone he could touch without fearing his casual contact would hurt her, too. It was also enjoyable to touch her in a way that was meant to make her feel good. He doubted anyone had touched her very often in this beautiful zaftig form because she was so fierce and strong and intimidating. She was indeed a wrathful goddess. None of that put him off because he understood it. He didn't see her as a monster, but he knew that was her function on the battlefield among other violent "monsters." He wondered, _Could a monster woo a monster_? He thought it might be worth his while to try.

Adam watched Nyxianna as she'd finally began to relax and lean back on her elbows. He could feel the tension in her letting up bit by bit. He wondered if anyone had dared to be this close to her. Thor and Natasha and very occasionally Clint and Tony were the only adults who touched him in his Hulk form if one didn't count the crowds today who had high-fived him and wanted to pat his arm or slap him on the back. It was hard to remember, but he thought Betty had touched him while thinking he was Bruce. He was sure Bruce would have touched him as Hulk if that had been possible, but his brother had the advantage of knowing Adam's other and younger selves and later so did Natasha and Lila. He had a feeling things would be different now with a corporal form of his own, but it was important to him that people he cared for had made the effort even without knowing who he really was.

Adam knew he was doing something right when Nyxianna finally quit holding back and groaned with pleasure. "By the Gorgon's Gilded Girdle, don't stop my handsome . . ." Her hair had come loose and fell in pale ringlets both in front and behind her horns. She only grew more beautiful in his eyes as he studied her.

He worked through each toe and the ball of her foot before he switched to her left foot and thoroughly massaged it as well. She sighed, "I've never received a better gift, especially from an opponent."

"I'm not done," he said, stroking her knee and thigh. "May I continue?"

"What do you plan on doing?"

"First, I want to remove your wet clothes and admire how beautiful a strong, stubborn woman can be. Then, I want to give you as much pleasure as I can."

"All right. You're certainly direct. I would like to see how pleasing you are to my eyes as well."

"Fair enough." They were both adults, and she deserved to see what she was getting. Adam knew his form wasn't easy on the eyes, but he was impressively big. He nodded and rose to his feet, smiling as he slid the tight, almost dry pants down over his hips. "Shrinkage" wasn't a problem since he still ran warm, but a much smaller Bruce was usually the one dealing with getting in and out of the damn pants. "Sorry, I'm not very graceful," Adam said as he pulled his over-sized feet free, one after the other, before he tossed the pants deftly onto the top of the boulder where their other clothes were. Admittedly, it felt good to be free and unconstrained. He briefly touched and checked himself, having to remind himself that he was now flesh and blood, which left him wondering what that meant on a practical level.

"I enjoy a show," Nyxianna said, feeling a little less on edge herself. She stood up and admired him from head to foot, walking around him to appreciate different angles. He bit his lower lip; it was his turn to feel a little self-conscious. She licked her lips, "You're graceful enough for me, you big, green muscular . . . appealing . . . hunk of . . . good-looking . . . did I say you have a lot of muscles?" she tried to articulate as she stepped very close, inhaling deeply. "You smell like herbs and fruit. Salt, maybe?" She skimmed her hands across his chest then down his stomach, but she didn't go lower. "Native Nixians have very little body hair. They look like small, bare-chested boys compared to you, Hulk Banner." He smiled at that, but he didn't correct her. "You please my eyes. You please my nose. You please my hands." She touched his upper arm where the bruise 'Anna had made earlier was completely gone.

"I'd like to please more of you," he intoned.

"Then please my lips," she said and leaned in to kiss him. He met her mouth with his and was surprised at how eagerly she tested him, tasting and teasing. Adam drew her into his arms. He soon realized her horns were gone as he supported the back of her neck with his left hand. His tongue probed her mouth carefully as he remembered how sharp her teeth had looked, but he didn't find a problem. She pulled back and chuckled a bit. "You please my lips and my mouth. What parts of me will you make happy next, my lover?" His heart leapt, _had he won her over?_

"I won't know until I unwrap you," he teased before he picked her up by the waist and set her on the nearest flat-topped boulder, about waist high for him. She laughed and stood up and unfastened her garment at the sides before shrugging out of the top. He breathed in sharply with appreciation as her breasts came free. They were round and golden orbs with dark pink nipples standing erect. Oh, he had plans to please them. She caught him staring hungrily and smiled, "Not just yet." She stepped closer to the edge. "I could use some help pulling these off."

He reached up and carefully pulled down the waistband over her hips. He kissed her stomach with its hard abs and the softer curve of her hip. His hands caressed her ample backside and held her close. "You smell like wood smoke and roses, but I'm not sure what the spicy undertone is?" He pulled her garment down until she could step out of it. He wanted to burry his face in her pale-haired mound, but he looked up, wanting her permission first. She smiled down at him and ran her fingers through his dark curly hair, caressing his brow and temples.

"You please me very much. If I asked you to please me carnally, would you do it?"

My, she'd gotten direct. "I would, but not to make children."

"If you choose to be 'Anna's paramour, you'll have to take me and the dragon at least once first."

"I don't think that will be a problem. I'm not so sure about the dragon, but I intend to be your lover if you want me. Making children in this form is risky at best. Part of what makes me Hulk may prevent having healthy offspring."

She nodded, "I'm not designed to attract anyone, yet you think you could love me?"

That was the real question. "I already want you. I admire you. I lust after you. I'd need to get to know you better to love you in the deeper sense of the emotion. You deserve that kind of love. I don't want to neglect you."

"I'm not the primary form. I'm just a part of 'Anna, a tool, a weapon to be used, no more or less."

At that Adam's heart broke for her. He held her close around the hips, stroking her lower back. "I understand, but you deserve to be happy, too." She looked down at him doubtfully. That helped him make up his mind. "Come with me," he said with a grin and picked her up, adjusting to swing her around into a bridal carry that both surprised her and made her throw her head back and laugh. "Hang on." Tony's property had originally had a modest cabin, but leave it to Stark to riff on the rustic with a modern lodge. Bruce had taken the time during their visit to walk the grounds and the interiors to give Adam plenty of material to make the construct, but the buildings hadn't been the focus of his work until now as he concentrated on finishing in a few moments what he had roughed out in his head months before.

He leapt to the driveway just in front of the building and set her down. "Sorry, it just occurred to me this is something I should share with you."

"A family house?" she guessed while looking at the large three-story structure of natural and high-tech materials.

"It's a lodge, so it's for family and guests. This is modeled after one my friend built, but I've modified it. Let me show you." He took her hand and led her in through the double doors and into the open area into which all the rooms converged. The master suit was to the right, so it had the best views of the lake. He'd modified it so everything was in a large scale. When he pushed the suite's double doors open, there was plenty of room to walk in. The hot tub was practically a swimming pool and the bed was made out of the same reinforced materials as Bruce and Natasha's but was large enough for a small orgy. There were no Tony-esque mirrors on the ceiling because most of it and the far wall were made of glass and transparent alloys. There were plants both inside and out to complete the illusion there were no walls and they were outside.

Nyxianna turned around and admired the room. "This is a beautiful space."

"A beautiful space with a beautiful woman in it," he said earnestly. She turned to him and smiled, wanting to believe him and go against decades of conditioning that her sole purpose and function was as a weapon, the wrathful avatar of the Goddess. He took her hand and kissed it, "I still want to please you. Let me."

"You said anything short of . . ."

"We're not making a child, but I'm willing to try things I haven't done before."

"You've never done this . . . never made love?"

"No, but I'm pretty certain how it works."

She laughed quietly, "Then we're in about the same position."

"Good, then we can explore this together."

"I take it you have some way of preventing a conception."

"He stepped to the side of the bed and pulled out a drawer in the nightstand. "Tony made these to test out the materials and equipment. The added bonus was to give my brother a hard time, but they should work." He picked up a box and opened it, handing her one of the individually wrapped condoms.

She read the package. "'Anna is just learning your written script. What is a 'zh-zuccheeni'?"

"It's a green somewhat phallus-shaped vegetable. Tony thought it was funny to tease Bruce when he found out Natasha and he were interested in each other. Tony is a good friend, but sometimes he doesn't know when to stop."

"He sounds disturbingly like my brothers. He's not a very good judge of produce though," she added, giving Adam an appraising look and conspiratorial wink. He snorted in good-humored agreement. She opened the packet, "A barrier method. 'Anna says we have something similar on Nix."

"Keep that within reach, but let's take our time getting there. Friday, Cool Jazz to Soul Mix One, please." As the instrumental music started, he took her hand and kissed it again before looping his arm over her head to turn her so her back was to his front. They both giggled nervously and he wrapped his arms around her, caressing her breasts and nibbling at her neck. She molded herself to his front and pressed her shapely backside into his thighs and hips in rhythm with the music. "You are so beautiful and your strength and tenacity are an aphrodisiac," he whispered into her ear. His breathing was getting ragged.

She reached back above her shoulder to run her fingers through his dark hair, "Don't be afraid to use your teeth, Lover."

He nibbled and teased at her ear before moving down her neck and nipping delicately at the skin above her artery, making sure her physiology was the same as a human's before he bit into the muscle at the base of her bronze neck. She gasped and arched her back. Her pale hair fell over his shoulder as she turned her head. He slipped his hands down to her thighs and stroked the insides, pulling her closer. His penis had been thickening and growing hard, and he pressed it into her lower back, and she ground her lovely ass into him. He released his hold on her neck and switched his attentions to the other side. Their groans harmonized with each other and the deep tones of the bass on the jazz track. She chuckled, "I like our music."

He rumbled his approval and moved his right hand to her mound with its pale, silky hair. He kneaded it like he had her breasts before, easing a finger in past the damp lips, making gentle circles around her prominent clit. She jumped and shuddered, "Oh, Love!" She was so wet her fluids were running around his fingers. He finally turned her neck loose and planted one last kiss.

"Let's move this to the bed," he suggested. They separated and she climbed backwards onto the crisp white sheets. "Not too far, Lover. I want to taste you." He stroked himself and adjusted so his foreskin was comfortable before he bent down on his knees in front of the bed and pulled her close to the edge. He smiled up at her. She was flushed with excitement and glowed pink beneath her dark golden skin. She chewed her full lower lip; he noted both her lips were now quite red. He rubbed his face against her inner thigh, "How are you doing?"

"You please me very much. Let's keep going."

He lifted her legs over his shoulders and she quickly caught on. Adam wasn't certain how sensitive her inner thighs might be or if she'd bruise, but his brother often daydreamed about marking Natasha there and going on to "pleasing" her with his mouth and fingers. That was usually Adam's signal to let Bruce have his thoughts to himself, but he had experienced enough vicariously that he didn't feel like a complete novice. He lightly gnawed and sucked as he went higher and higher on her thighs, alternating from side to side. He finally bit deep enough to work the muscle on her right side and she arched her back, "Yes, Hulk, yes!" He gently eased his right thumb into her, a bit surprised at how tight she was till he realized her hymen was still intact. _Oh, wow!_ He asked her, "How do you want me to do this? I can use my fingers to ease you open or be as gentle as I can entering you so it tears. Either way, it's probably going to hurt a bit."

She made up her mind, "Use you fingers. I want to get on with this."

He nodded and grabbed the box of wipes from the nightstand since there might be blood. He kept stroking her thighs and kissing them as he inserted first one then two fingers. She was still very slick, so he gently worked her opening, only penetrating about an inch before he located the "maidenhead." He widened his fingers' spread and kept gently penetrating a little deeper, stretching the barrier bit by bit. "Do it!" she told him. He thrust deeper and felt the tissue tear. She breathed in sharply, "Yes!" She seemed glad just to have it over with.

There was only a small bit of bright red blood to clean up. "Better?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm ready for you now."

He grinned at her then rubbed his face against her mound, breathing in her perfume of spiced smoke and roses and now a warm musk. He slipped his hands under her sweet ass and squeezed as he pulled her close. She was trembling. He gently parted her nether lips with his fingers and kissed her with his lips then flicked her exposed clit with his warm tongue. Nyxianna jumped then thrust her hips to meet him, wanting more. Ah, she was like a warm tender orchid in bloom, and he wanted to fill all his senses up with her. Adam kissed her up and down her opening. Nyxianna writhed under his mouth, and Adam continued to kiss her folds and then swirl his tongue around her swollen clit. He licked the edge of her vagina before inserting two fingers and stroking the sides, opening her wider. "Oh, yes!" she whimpered. He sped up his rhythm, flicking her clitoris and vibrating his tongue as he rocked his fingers in and out, stroking high and deep. She cried out and shuddered, grabbing his hair. "Oh, sweet Lover!" She bucked as she came, squeezing down tight on his fingers like a mouth sucking them. Now, this was definitely a species difference, he noted as he consulted borrowed memories. She let go of his hair and lay back on the bed panting hard. She was so beautiful.

Adam also leaned back and enjoyed watching her flush dark under her golden skin. His fingers were still held tight inside her, so he pushed deeper and stroked the underside of her pubic bone. She arched her back and choked out a cry, tightening down more. Fortunately, she didn't seem to be in pain, but he was still concerned. Adam was a little afraid to remove his hand, so he carefully rose from his knees and lay down beside her. He looked at her with concern. "I'm okay," she assured him as her breathing slowed down. Nyxianna rolled over with him and threw her leg around his hip to help keep their connection intact. Her expression and demeanor had finally grown calm and relaxed with afterglow. Her hands explored his body, touching, massaging his shoulders and chest, following the trail of dark hair as far down his stomach as she could get. Then she kissed his throat, working her way up to his ears, which she nibbled and teased with her tongue. That made Adam squirm, and they both chuckled as she stroked his face with her fingertips. "Your eyes are the same in both your forms, such a beautiful shade of green, Lover."

"Really, not brown?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow as she ruffled her fingers through his hair.

"No, they glowed at first, but now they're like green gems with rims of dark gray at the very edge."

"Hmm, that's new, but it's my first time being Hulk solo without Bruce's presence. He has dark brown eyes. That's one of the more obvious differences between us. When I'm his Hulk, my eyes are brown."

She fingered the growing beard stubble along his jaw and chin. "So you were born like a ghost without a real body except here in this place."

"Apparently, until now. The only time I could manifest in reality was as Hulk, so having a corporal form may mean a pretty big change. Bruce is going to be shocked."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know yet," he said honestly. "It depends on the consequences to Bruce and Hulk. My first impulse is to come find you, but I may still not be able to live apart from my twin. We'll have to see."

"I can't live apart from 'Anna. I'm her sword arm. I'm the Goddess, but I have my duty and my limits. This body will always be shared, but she's the part of me in charge."

"I know. I do understand package deals." He brought up his free hand to brush her hair back behind her ear and touch her face. "I'm just so happy to know you're someone I can love, Nyxianna."

"You can love us in all forms?"

"Yes, I think I can. It's going to take time to know for certain, but I'm willing to try it with you."

She pulled him close and kissed him. Her vaginal muscles finally relaxed and turned his hand loose. He noticed how her fluids had thickened and added to the tightness of the seal. Yet, now her juices seemed to be flowing once again. "Is this how it normally works for Nixian females? The way you clamp down when you orgasm, I mean."

"Doesn't it work the same way with Earth females?"

"Not quite. I don't have firsthand experience, but I know the coupling ends sooner," he explained.

"But that cuts short the time for touching," she protested.

"I think there's still as much cuddling as partners want."

"I hope so." Now that she could get to him, she reached down past his stomach and stroked his partially erect cock, while he rubbed against her thigh, thrusting his hips. "Ah, you still want to fuck me, you gorgeous green warrior?"

"Yes, I very much want to fuck you, my beautiful woman from across the stars."

Nyxianna nuzzled his cheek and kissed him before she sat up and retrieved the wipes for his hand and the condom. "I want to be on top," she told him, so he grinned and moved up to the middle of the bed and lay on his back. He stroked himself, pulling the foreskin back. He wasn't used to this since Bruce was circumcised, but it didn't seem to be much of a problem, especially after easing her through the loss of her maidenhead. How hard could it be?

She pulled out the condom and placed the tip over the dark head of his engorged manhood. His cock jerked with sensitivity, and she drew back, afraid she'd hurt him. "It's okay. The tip is just really sensitive. Keep touching me, please. You feel so good," he told her. She smiled and stroked his shaft lightly at first and then more firmly as he rocked his hips with her rhythm. He was leaking precome, so she worked it down his length before she unrolled the condom. He was quite impressive when fully aroused.

"I've wanted 'Anna to find a male like you. It's incredibly exciting that I get to break you in, too," she said with a coy smile.

"I may not last very long, but I'm all yours," he told her with a grin.

"I understand it gets better and better with practice," she teased.

"I've heard that, too." Well, he knew from Bruce's thoughts on the matter that it was true for him.

"I am a disciplined person."

"I'm a very goal-driven one, and I can be taught," he said. "Perhaps you should start now." Nyxianna was a very willing teacher and also very athletic. She lightly straddled his hips, rubbing her soft wet vulva along his swollen shaft. He wanted so badly to thrust, but he waited as she positioned herself. She looked so beautiful above him with the trees and the sky framing her pale hair that almost floated around her beautiful strong-featured face. He groaned with pleasure as the head of his cock entered her, and she settled onto his shaft, taking in as much of him as possible. She groaned too as she gradually worked him up and down, sliding oh so slowly on his thick shaft. She was so exquisitely tight. He began to work with her, thrusting deeper into her untried virginal spaces, loosening and stimulating muscles she may never have worked before. He held onto her hips and arched his back, thrusting into her as deeply as he dared.

"Oh, Hulk. My Hulk . . ." she repeated like a mantra. He could feel her pulsing on his cock, and her color was starting to darken again. His own skin was starting to prickle and his focus narrowed to bodily sensations. His balls had drawn up tight, and he felt absolutely achingly full. He was going to fill her up when he came, condom or not. There was a low humming vibration that seemed to come from both of them as the opening bars of Leonard Cohan's "Halleluiah" played over the sound system. He slid his right hand to her front and massaged her silken mound before he slipped his thumb in to work her clit. She was so slick for him. He stroked her nub in a circular motion, and Nyxianna jumped and spasmed, muscles grabbing hard at his cock along its full length.

 _Now I've heard there was a secret chord  
That David played, and it pleased the Lord  
But you don't really care for music, do you?  
It goes like this  
The fourth, the fifth  
The minor fall, the major lift  
The baffled king composing Hallelujah_

Everything slowed and he focused on the release he couldn't deny himself much longer. _Hallelujah . . . Hallelujah . . ._ There was a roar escaping from his throat that started deep in his chest and down in his gut and a bass chord resolving the hum at his core. She cried out and her body pulled at him and he gave, how he gave, as he orgasmed. It wasn't just one spasm and done either. She also pulled energy from him and combined it with hers before it washed back into him. His whole body jolted with pleasure and warmth, which he shared back with her. Her muscles rhythmically contracted on his shaft and he released again, sending another wave of shared energy washing back and forth between them. He was enough in the present to catch her shoulders as she rocked forward onto him. He settled her gently on his chest and kissed the top of her pale head. They were both still shaking as the last verse played over the sound system.

 _I did my best, it wasn't much  
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch  
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you  
And even though it all went wrong  
I'll stand before the Lord of Song  
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah  
Hallelujah, Hallelujah . . ._

"Great Mother, we would have made warriors with this coupling," she said with a groan that ended in a sigh. "Hallelujah, indeed."

He let out a rumbling chuckle, "If the condom broke, we still might."

"Do you think it broke?" she asked, raising her head to see his face.

"I think it's fine. We were pretty energetic, but not really that rough."

"Did 'Anna explain delayed cycles and suspended conception to you?"

"No, she didn't. Please enlighten me."

"Our race has better control over the timing of pregnancies and births than yours probably does. My body can store your sperm or a fertilized egg for months before letting them implant and the pregnancy to move forward. Some females can use the same sperm deposit for multiple pregnancies by holding back fertilized eggs."

"That's impressive," he said, still processing the implications. "I'm not sure human sperm could survive that long." What he didn't say was that he really wasn't strictly human. It astounded him that one coupling could make a sizable family (or a small army). His mind spun with questions and speculation about what conditions brought about this adaptation and the implications for his possible actions.

"My point is," she said, tilting her head to look up at him, "even if the condom did break, I wouldn't necessarily have to get pregnant."

"Oh, okay, now I think I understand. You have your own built-in method of emergency contraception?"

"Yes, but it's not always reliable, so it's not a practical first choice, just a safety net."

"Well, we'll know soon enough." He stroked her back, enjoying the weight of her body on him. If this encounter was like the one earlier, her vaginal muscles wouldn't turn loose of him for a while. "What do you call the exchange of energies back and forth when we came?"

"It has a few different names: the surge, the fire, or glomatu is the old name, 'the glow we share'."

"Glomatu, that sounds pleasant. I think I like that. Does it happen every time?"

"No, we were really in sync to reach it. We have poetry that's devoted to it and the afterglow, which is what we're experiencing now. Would you like to hear some?"

"Yes, I would. I'm your captive audience."

She slow-motion play punched him in the nose, "Hush, this is serious. I'm not a poetry interpreter, but this is a popular modern one." She took a deep breath.

 _Our bodies are one with the fire.  
You look at me with the clarity  
Water brings to the parched earth.  
We make fire that needs no air._

He smiled and she ran her fingers through his chest hair. "They tend to be short like that. Some of them don't make a lot of sense, but many of them are about fertility."

 _The glow passes between us  
While our inner desires burn.  
As we couple, do not cry, Lover.  
You carry our joy inside._

"They sound a bit like haiku crossed with love notes," he decided. "So lovers write or recite them for each other?"

"Yes, most of them aren't even written down, but there are books of them lovers read to each other while they are joined like this. Do you know something similar?" she asked him. "I'd like to hear some of your culture's verse."

"How did I know you were going to ask that? Let me see . . ." He rubbed a hand over his jaw and lips for a moment before he remembered most of a poem Bruce had memorized to impress Betty long ago. "This isn't complete, but it's the best parts from a Lord Byron poem."

 _She walks in beauty, like the night  
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;  
And all that's best of dark and bright  
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:  
Thus mellowed to that tender light  
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. _

Adam lightly brushed the side of Nyxianna's face with his forefinger and traced her features as he continued on with what he remembered.

 _And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,  
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,  
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,  
But tell of days in goodness spent,  
A mind at peace with all below,  
A heart whose love is innocent!_

"Sorry, I'm not eloquent enough to remember it all or come up with one on the spot, but you are beautiful and strong and all I could want in a lover." He could see that she blushed at that.

"It was lovely, thank you. That was more than I could memorize all together. Do you write yourself?"

"No, not with any real skill. I do enjoy reading poetry and listening to it though." He swallowed, "I hope you know I meant what I said. I find you desirable and worthy of poetry."

Nyxianna shook her head bemusedly, "You're here in this moment. You've made me happy, Adam Hulk Banner. That's all I can ask. Don't say anymore because it's just going to be harder."

He couldn't argue with that because his heart was already growing heavy with the awareness their time here was almost over. He felt her vaginal muscles finally relax and they separated. Before she could get up, he carefully rolled them both over so she was on her back and he was on his right side and they could face each other. "Listen, Nyxianna, I'm not very good, but let me try."

 _We are of the soil and the rock.  
Our strength is not only in our shoulders and our backs,  
It's in our will and in our hearts.  
Mine syncs with yours and I claim you for my own. _

"That was beautiful, but why are you doing this, Lover?" She was caught between embracing him for the poetry and wanting to knock some sense into his head.

"I warned you I was goal-oriented," he said hesitantly. "I . . . I want to see you happy. Now you suddenly seem miserable. Did I do something wrong? I don't want to leave you like this."

"Look, I'm all right, dear Adam. You've done nothing wrong. We don't need any resolution here. This isn't an ending and it doesn't need to be all smiling and happy or solemn and complete. It just is. We've made love, it was beautiful, and we'll always have that to share." She stroked his cheek. "The good news is we'll get along. We'll make good partners when and if it happens. But neither of us is free. We can't just do what we want."

"You're right," he acknowledged. "We have lives that don't give us that option. It may not always be that way. All I'm asking is don't shut down. Please don't shut me out."

"I'm not. I won't. You know where you can find me, Hulk. I'm part of 'Anna even when she's the one in control. Please be kind. Don't blame her for the situation."

"I'll do my best. Please don't leave. Not yet, Nyxianna."

She reached up and placed both strong, capable hands on the sides of his face as he leaned over her. To his surprise, she was grinning conspiratorially. "We're both warriors and thieves. We've won and stolen each other's hearts and left our virginity behind. That makes this beyond special. We'll always be each other's first. Now it's time for you to go plan out our future with 'Anna. I know you won't forget me, and I certainly won't forget you, Adam Hulk Banner." Before he could object or tell her he liked her couplets or the dozen other stupid things popping into his head, she pulled him into a kiss, which he chose to just enjoy and not fight. He felt the hum at his core, and they both felt the moment their hearts synced. Adam finally relaxed. Now he knew for certain he could find her again.

 **End Notes:** Some really important developments for Adam here on both the personal and physical levels. He's fought off adulthood for years because of his limited circumstances, but on some level he's been working to overcome or remove those limits, and he's achieved success without knowing it. What happens when the old limits that framed a person's world are gone? How does this affect one's relationships? Does autonomy come at too high of a price? Lots to think about.

Well, should he or shouldn't he? Tell Adam not to do something and it's practically a guarantee. Does the boy ever learn?

Questions, comments, and conversations please!

Next time, back to our main reality . . .


	55. Chapter 55

Chapter 55: Running on Empty

 **Summary:** Bruce and Nat know something is up. 'Anna and Adam talk before parting. Adam has his suspicions. Stephen gets some help running diagnostics.

 **Notes:** Thank you for your patience. Thanksgiving got in the way. Keep sending healing vibes my wonderful Beta gal's way because Autumn_Froste soldiered through yet again despite the challenges. Put on some Jackson Brown and enjoy some soup!

The smell of humus and leaf mold was overwhelming, but he kept up his clawing until the ginger roots pulled loose in a clump. Even though burrowing around in the dirt wasn't his idea of a fun predawn activity, he was collecting ginger root for his "ginger" and that had kept him stubbornly working at it till he had the plant secured. His red mate was not feeling well as she neared the time for nesting and laying in, so he'd left her sleeping early that morning and ventured down from the slopes and into the forest to find the medicinal plant. He'd located the lily-like red flowers exactly where he'd remembered them. His problem was that claws designed for snatching fish and other prey didn't work that well in the soil. Now that the brown clump of vegetation was free, he held it up and sniffed at it. He remembered his mother making him chewed it for an upset stomach, so he knew it was full of spicy heat and not altogether unpleasant. The flowers were an added bonus, so he did his best not to ruin them as he ambled back to the clearing where he could take off without obstruction into the gray dawn. If he hurried, she might still be asleep. His green and black wings beat the damp air as his dark lithe body undulated with the motion from head to tail. He was quickly aloft and skimming over tree-covered ridges as the sun's first rays burst over the horizon. Before long, his heart leapt with joy as he rounded the last granite outcropping and spotted the well-hidden entrance to their home high on the mountain's slopes. He landed as quietly as possible on three legs and approached the entrance, hoping she was still resting, but he heard the low rumbling purr he recognized as her sound for contentment and happiness. As his eyes adjusted, he saw her curled around a clutch of red, green, and purple-black eggs. He crooned a high-pitched sigh and laid the flowered root ball down beside her. They rumbled their greetings and nuzzled their faces and necks, purring and chuckling. She arched her graceful neck and he nipped at her dorsal scales. The mated pair were utterly content.

((o))

Bruce sat up, completely disoriented. It took him a moment to connect the electronic chime with the alarm on his phone, but he quickly shut it off and looked around him at the darkened hotel room. He'd been a dragon flying home to his mate, but hadn't he just said goodbye to Adam? He shook his head trying to clear it. Something was off. Then he thought about the mental burst of information Adam plugged directly into his brain during their conversation. There had been an episode of dragons in that, so his mind must have picked up on the theme and combined it with Natasha's morning sickness. Still, it had been awfully confusing even if part of him had thrilled at the idea of taking flight and heading home.

There was a quiet knock at the suite door, so he turned on the lights and got up from the bed, feeling a bit rumpled. Kayla was checking to make sure he was up and moving. She had an updated itinerary for him on a Stark-pad, which he thanked her for and looked over briefly. He'd been passed out for not two but three hours, so he'd missed some of the disaster coverage. "Anything really important before Tony's address?" he asked her, stretching and not succeeding at holding in a yawn.

"We've had numerous requests for interviews with you, well, a few for you, but mostly the Big Guy," Kayla said, not hiding a smile. Bruce saw no need to hold back either and had a good chuckle. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just keep imagining the press trying to work with his size," she said.

"I know. I was thinking of that, too," Bruce admitted, remembering Tony had joked about putting Adam in a tailored suit the day before. "Now, please don't tell me we agreed to any of them."

"No, Tony said he'd take questions after his presentation at the conference this evening, but we won't put you or the Big Guy on the spot."

Bruce nodded. He made a mental note to make himself scarce afterward, so he wouldn't be a visible target or be dragged up on the stage with Tony.

Bruce's phone intoned "Our Love Is Here to Stay." "It's Natasha. I have to take this," he said as he pulled it out of his pocket.

"That is a great ringtone," Kayla said.

"Used to be 'You Are My Sunshine', but she updated it for me," he admitted.

"Now, that I believe," Kayla noted as she pulled the suite door closed behind her.

He quickly answered the Stark-phone, "Hey, babe, I'm here. What's going on?"

"Are you all right?" Natasha asked.

"Yah, fine. Weird dreams, but nothing worse."

"Good . . . спасибо," she said with relief.

"Why? Did something happen, Nat?"

"No, just a really strong premonition. Is Adam okay?"

"He was when I left him, but he had some serious things happen: visitors. Strange finally showed up . . ."

"It's about damn time."

". . . but he wasn't the only one. Adam occasionally gets visits along the edge of his space from an Asguardian. He calls him Raven, but it's not really just a bird."

"As in Huginn or Muninn?"

"Or maybe an underling. It's not been clear in identifying itself."

"So he's been talking to a bird who's probably a spy from Asgard."

"More of a representative or an observer since it's made no secret whom it represents. Usually it just checks in on occasion and talks to him along the edge, but this time it tried to convince him to leave."

"Leave what? He can't exactly drop everything and step out of your head."

"Well . . . it's not clear how that would happen short of magic, but Raven was quite certain it was possible for Adam to leave."

"How did Adam react to that?"

"Told the bird that wasn't going to happen because he wasn't interested, but of course he was curious about how it would be possible. I can't fault him for that because I'd like to know, too."

"That would be quite the trick."

"I know. There would have to be a way to stabilize his form or make some kind of body or vessel to contain him. Well, anyway, to top it off, those two weren't the only ones who showed up. It's a bit complicated, but apparently it started with Adam throwing a rock over the edge into the void . . . and someone came back to return the rock."

Natasha sighed again. Bruce was secretly glad he and Tony weren't the only ones doing all the sighing. "Aaah! Fool of a Took!"

"Exactly! I didn't say it, but I certainly thought about it," Bruce admitted. Wow, that _Lord of the Rings_ marathon was beginning to pay off. "Well, it wasn't orcs or a troll. That would have been too easy."

"Crap! It was a female wasn't it?"

"Yah, it was," Bruce sighed. "The reason I know this so well is our boy picked up a new mind technique that acts like a data dump right into your brain. I'm still getting random thoughts and images. Him being forced to change into a dragon, but that's kind of confused. I ended up dreaming about being a dragon and bringing you ginger."

Natasha snorted at that, "Well, at least you were thinking of me."

"Are you feeling better?"

"Much better than this morning."

"Good. You sound better. You've had me worried."

"I'm eating leftover noodles and dumplings with your fancy ginger ale."

"Ah, good, so I wasn't completely off."

"Tell me more about this female from the void."

"Well, Strange confirmed she rules a planet that's a protectorate of Asgard, but it was invaded by some of the bad actors in that region during part of the chaos a few years ago and then 'pacified' by the Asgardians. So you can see how there's a bit of dissatisfaction there."

"So how does someone on the far end of the galaxy find her way into Adam's dream scape?"

"Well, inexplicably, the rock he threw hit her."

"Across the galaxy? Millions of miles and several light years away?"

"I know. It's monsters and magic . . ."

"And nothing any of us were trained for," she finished her own thought from years ago. Skip forward and here she was in love with the monster. The one she'd give almost anything to have home with her right now. "Okay, what is she like? Surely, Adam didn't leave that out."

"If it weren't for the curled horns—don't take this wrong—imagine Malibu Barbie meets She-Ra on steroids in a petite package."

Natasha was quiet for a moment trying to picture that combination of warrior princess. "What did Adam think of her?"

"He was appropriately contrite about the stone, and also pretty smitten with her. I'm not sure what happened, but he won her over once she looked into his mind. The curiosity was pretty mutual, too, so I'm certain it won't be the last he sees of her. Also, to be fair, she backed off when she found out how inexperienced he is." He could clearly hear Natasha sigh with exasperation. "I asked him not to rush into anything and to find out what she wanted and why before going any further."

"Can you tell what he's doing now?" Natasha asked.

"I'm trying to give him some space, a little privacy."

"Just check for him, please."

Bruce looked inward. "As predicted, he's talking to her. I don't want to pry any more than that."

Natasha would have liked to have been a fly on the wall, but she knew Bruce was not going to cooperate without a good reason. "Don't you think this is a little fast?"

"They're just talking."

"Isn't this just a little too convenient?"

"I know. It's bothering me, too, but Adam is as old as I am. He can handle himself, especially in his own realm."

"Are you sure? Even if he's existed as long as you, he doesn't have near the experience dealing with people you have, Bruce."

"He has most of my experiences to fall back on if he needs them. He knows I'm at his call if he needs me."

"Bruce, he's interacted with therapists, teammates, me, the Bartons, Logan, that bird, and Strange. That hardly prepares him to deal with foreign diplomats or whomever turns up on your mental doorstep."

"Trust me. He's doing okay. When will he get another chance to interact with someone he has something in common with? Maybe never."

"Don't treat this like a play date, Bruce. You two are exposing yourselves to an outside influence that could do all kinds of things in your head if she uses magic. She could use mind control and have power over the Hulk part of you both."

"I'm not taking this lightly. Adam has the situation well contained. I trust him. Look, like it or not, he is maturing and he needs to learn to interact with new people. I understand that he has mixed feelings about it. I do, too. Part of him would be happy topping off as an eight year old and being a cute little moppet forever. Who wouldn't want to avoid the 'complexities' of being an adult now and then? On my end, he's easy to deal with when all he wants is a hug and a little company to ask questions, but it's not the totality of who he is. You saw him. He's getting closer to what he might have been that's separate from me."

She rubbed at her temples with her free hand. "Okay, I get that. I've spent time with him. I agree that he's his own person and his situation is improving, but it doesn't get more sheltered than living in someone else's head without the responsibility of even maintaining a body 98% of the time. I mean, it might as well be a different dimension, Bruce."

Bruce had been pacing back and forth from one room of the suite to another while they talked, but what she said about dimensions brought him up short as he examined the idea and his mind started leaping ahead. "Oh, Nat . . ."

"Talk to me, Bruce. I can hear the gears turning from here."

"I think we may have been looking at this wrong. When was the last time you saw him shift between forms?"

"Last night when he came into my dream, but I didn't actually see him do it until we were in his space. That's when I asked what he would have looked like as an adult. It took him a few minutes, and he had a hard time holding it. He ended up scaling back to fourteen or so for most of the conversation. Why?"

"It's just a hunch at the moment, but I think he has a better firewall up than we thought. Proving it is going to be the challenge, but Adam may have already moved out."

((o))

Nyxianna's body shrank as she changed back to 'Anna from her avatar form. Adam noted again that her transformation process was much smoother than his own transition. He wondered if it was through magic or if being in flux was just a natural state for her and that made it easier. By comparison, his own transition certainly wasn't smooth or natural. As 'Anna settled back into control, her eyes grew wide as she took in the situation. It was pretty obvious with them both being naked on the bed and the used condom what they'd just been doing. He wondered what, if anything, she remembered. Well, at least she hadn't tried to kill him just yet.

"What hap . . . Oh, we didn't, Adam." He could tell she was imagining the two of them coupled, green and bronze limbs tangled together.

"Yah, we kinda did." All he could do was give her a shrug and an apologetic look. She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head. He thought she must be shocked. Adam sat up and swung his large green legs over the edge on his side of the bed, turning his back to her. He removed the spent condom, which was perfectly intact and blinked it out of existence, which simply meant recycling the matter. He imagined their clothes clean and folded on the foot of the bed, and they appeared there with the stone seated squarely on his pile like a paperweight. He turned back to 'Anna, still feeling a bit uncomfortable. "You're not too upset with me, are you?"

"Oh, Oolaloon, no! Don't worry. This has been coming on for a long while. Well, it was going to happen for you both at some point. I just didn't foresee you two would manage it so quickly. Are you all right? I'm sorry. I know it was your fist time and hers." She reached over and touched his arm, lightly at first and then more firmly before she took his large green hand in her much smaller golden brown ones. "I sense it was a mutual decision."

"Yes, it was. I'm okay with it. I'm just trying to get used to everything. It's all moving so very fast." He gave her a lopsided smile. "For the moment, I suppose we should take things one step at a time and clean up. You're welcome to join me. It's a pretty big shower." He got up, walked around the bed, and offered her his hand. She didn't shy away from taking it and followed him into the bathroom, which was like a grotto with high-tech showerheads, a waterfall, and toilets that did more than he'd ever have time to check out. He walked over to the waterfall and let its warm water splash over him then dropped to his knees as he transitioned from Hulk back to what he now considered his new normal form. Adam had to give 'Anna credit, without hesitating, she stepped forward and grabbed his shoulders to steady him. Shuddering, he rode the process out to its completion. It hurt. It always did. He realized he was leaning on 'Anna and pulled back. Adam couldn't help but note she was strong and beautiful like her avatar. "Thanks, it's never easy coming down, but usually it's Bruce handling this end. I just go home and sleep," he tried to joke.

She brushed his wet locks back from his face, and he looked up at her as the water splashed around them. "You are quite impressive, Adam," 'Anna told him. "My goddess form soundly rejected all the other suitors I've put forward, but you seem to have won her over."

"Well, it wasn't exactly one of the twelve labors, but I tried to make her happy. I know it's important we get along."

"It takes a little time to integrate my memories, but she clearly favors you. I know that doesn't sound like much, but she generally dislikes most people or simply dispatches them," 'Anna told him.

He chuckled because that sounded in character. "Tell me something. Is she a part of you or is she a separate being?"

"She's an aspect of me, but when she manifests, that part has autonomy, so it takes some time to mentally reintegrate when I'm me again. Her body, however, is separate. It's a tool of the Goddess. You probably figured out that's why it was her first time, too."

Adam breathed in sharply, "Is that going to be a problem? That's not considered defiling her or you is it?"

'Anna laughed, "No, we're not vestal virgins or eunuchs. Believe me, I can tell she has no complaints with you." She looked at him and stroked the stubble along his jaw the same way Nyxianna had. He could see both sides of her there smiling down at him. To his surprise, his other personas rumbled back in satisfaction, too. It seemed two-thirds of him were won over already. He was tempted to just go along with the pleasant feelings and primal urges, but he remained skeptical. Things were never this easy, and they were moving so fast.

"The Big Guy can be pretty charming when he's not pissed off," he joked.

She snorted a laugh at that. "Again with the deflection, Lover. Just how badly did she rough you up?"

'Anna rubbed his jaw where she'd struck him earlier, and Adam smiled, "She certainly tried, but I'm fine. We went for a little swim in the deep end of the lake, and that seemed to calm her down, but we had a few rounds first." Adam felt steady enough to get to his feet, and 'Anna gave him a hand up. Now he could definitely feel the difference between his old forms and his new corporal body. Of course he'd felt pain before, but the stiffness and aches were new. He was leaning pretty heavily on his Gamma reserves, which helped with the healing but apparently didn't filter out his aches and pains.

To his surprise, 'Anna was grinning at him and she stepped in close. "You clearly bested her, so how did you win her over after that? She's not a graceful loser."

Adam rubbed the back of his head, "We just talked. I massaged her feet. We talked some more. One thing led to another." He kept expecting 'Anna to get upset with him and reject him as her memories integrated, but she leaned in close again and reached around him, pulling their wet bodies together. Hesitantly at first, he embraced her then he relaxed into it. Maybe this really was okay with her. He bent down and kissed the top of her damp pale head. It felt so nice to hold her and touch so much of their skin from the softer curves to the harder edges together. He knew deep down he'd been afraid of this intimacy not being something he wanted. He recalled Bruce having a difficult time with most forms of physical contact because of the abuse and trust issues as well. The Banner side of the family had not been touchy-feely types. Their mother had been very demonstrative and Aunt Susan had tried, but Bruce had retreated so far inward that it wasn't until a decade and a half later in his early twenties that Bruce had made a concerted effort to be close to someone emotionally. The physical closeness had followed. Betty and her endless patience had been whom Bruce had needed at that time. Now that Adam had a choice, he knew he'd be reevaluating how he felt about a lot of things. Maybe 'Anna was what he needed?

'Anna looked up into his eyes, "Are you okay with me touching you?"

He nodded his head, "I wasn't certain if I'd feel comfortable, but you make me feel connected. I like having you touch me, and I like touching you. That comes as a surprise to parts of me."

She ran her hands along his sides, back, and flanks, exploring his topography. "You are amazingly without scars, but that doesn't surprise me."

"Shiny, new outside, but the inside has the wear marks and the sharp corners are rounded off." He ran his hands over her back and downward. "You're not new either, but you are beautiful and complete."

She stood up on her toes and he bent down to give her a kiss. His heart sped up, and he breathed in the warm smell of her, wanting to drink in and memorize as much of her as he could in too short of a time. Until today, he'd been resigned to being alone and never considered what sharing a relationship or having intimacy might be like. Part of him was screaming to hold back, that he was going to get hurt, but the rest of him was ready to take the risk and reach out. He could tell that despite their very different circumstances, 'Anna was just as pleasantly surprised as he was. The kiss they were sharing wasn't the least bit chaste, but they had to turn their attention to other important subjects, so neither of them pushed it.

On a hidden shelf, there was an odd assortment of shower products he'd plucked out of memories. 'Anna looked through several before settling on a citrusy all-in-one. To his surprise, she pulled his head down to her level and gave him a thorough scrubbing. Once she was satisfied he was cleaned and exfoliated and rinsed enough, she shooed him out, so she could finish and he could get dressed. Adam toweled off and pulled some olive khakis and a blue oxford from the closet—boring, but serviceable. It occurred to him that he'd never shaved before, so he wasn't about to try that on his own. He ran his hand over what was definitely a five-o'clock shadow: scruffy it would have to be for now. The deodorant was much more user friendly. He pulled the socks and boxers from bureau draws and a pair of oxblood wingtips from a rack in the closet and a belt to match. If there were a white lab coat, he could have gone to work with Bruce. Once he was dressed, he stopped and sat down in a chair to wait.

'Anna didn't take long. Her hair was still damp, but she was very quickly into her clothes. He was fascinated with her efficiency and how the robes and under garment worked together, but he held his curiosity in check. 'Anna stood in front of the full-length mirror by the closet. She'd found a comb and pulled her hair back again. He handed her the hair tie that had fallen to the floor as she dressed. She looked at him in the mirror and smiled. "I'm thinking we should give this time, Adam. You're right about things moving too fast. Part of me wants to take you with me right now and show you my world, but I know there might be very serious consequences for you and your brother."

He placed his hands on her shoulders, "I think you're right. I need to find out what has changed and how before anything else goes forward. I do want to see you though."

She nodded, "I've been thinking. I have taken on scholars and students in the past. If Strange doesn't offer to train you, please consider me as an alternative. I can come here if you can't come to me. It's a good cover if we need one, and to be honest, you need the discipline."

"All right," he laughed, but he couldn't really argue with her assessment of him. "That sounds workable to me. How do I reach you?"

"Just do what you did earlier." She picked up the stone from the bed. "Stand near water and think of me."

"By the way," he asked, "what is the marking on the back of the stone?"

"It's a map." She stroked her thumb over it and the lines glowed a subtle blue. "We're both here so there is only one point." She showed him the yellow-green dot of light. "Once I'm gone, stroke it and you'll see just how far away we are from each other." She placed it back in his hand, and Adam slipped it into his pocket. "I'll teach you more when you're ready."

"Thank you for trusting me with it. How long should I wait before I contact you?" he asked.

"You'll know when you're ready. You'll feel comfortable in your own skin, Adam. I promise. You'll know."

"All right, do you need or want anything from me?"

She ran her hands down the sides of his face and studied him, clearly trying to memorize as many details as possible. "No, thank you, memories will do," she said with a sincere smile.

"Wait," he picked up a few of the loose decorative stones from around the plants. He pressed them between his palms and concentrated, pulling together the right atoms and reforming the crystal structure of the quartz to separate and remake it into something else. What he was doing wasn't wizardry, but it mimicked alchemy. "Here," he said and she held out her hand. Adam placed three sparkling multi-colored stones in her palm. "They're fire opals. I've wanted to try and make some. I should have asked how you'd want them mounted, but I thought maybe you'd rather do that to your liking." The largest was the size of a robin's egg and the other two were slightly smaller. All were smooth and tear-shaped, and from one angle they flashed purple, blue, and green, while from another the red, yellow, and orange end of the spectrum shown in bright flecks of color.

"I've never seen anything like these," she said while turning them over in her palm. "They do give me ideas. Thank you, Adam."

"You're welcome. I'll look forward to seeing what you do with them."

At that 'Anna gave him a knowing look before she secured them in a hidden pocket in her robes. She smiled and levitated so that her bare feet were above the ground, and she was at the right level to pull him into a kiss, caressing his cheeks and running her hands through his hair. There was longing and a promise in it, too, and she gave him a quick kiss on his forehead to seal it. "It won't be long," she whispered, and disappeared in a whirl of fog that was soon gone as well.

He shifted to the kitchen in Dayton and sat down heavily in his favorite chair at the table. That was where Strange found him a little later.

"Please tell me you're not the one who planned this out," Adam said aloud when he sensed his friend's presence.

"Sorry, I can't take credit for it, Adam. I'm no Nick Fury."

"Neither is Fury anymore, but I refuse to believe this is randomness and serendipity." Adam gestured to the chair across from him and the former physician pulled it out and sat down. He still had on the blue suit from earlier in the day.

"Do you think Nyxianna is in on it?" Strange asked.

"I don't. I think we're both being played." Adam shifted in his chair and leaned forward over the table. He laid the fourth fire opal he'd made on the surface and spun it like a top.

"Then who would stand to benefit if your meeting plays out to its natural conclusion?" Strange asked as he steepled his fingers, watching Adam.

"' _Natural conclusion'_?"

"What you're tempted to do," the sorcerer explained.

"Who wants my brother and the Hulk out of play?"

"Or Nix for that matter or just you left vulnerable and out in the open, Adam. It depends completely upon what scale we're discussing."

"Start with Ross at the bottom and skip to the top."

"Thanos followed by Loki and then perhaps the Celestials. There might be others who see them as a threat. If we're talking about people who would like to recruit and use you, it goes up exponentially."

"Well, there's at least one Asguardian on that list, but not that many people know about me. Are you sure you're not, Stephen?"

"I will honestly admit, Adam, that securing Nyxianna's loyalties and those of her people would have been a very useful mission . . . if it had occurred to me before now. However, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Honestly, throwing you into the arms of a potential ally in hopes you'd seduce her, did not occur to me."

Adam chuckled. It did sound absurd when he said it that way. "I'm so hurt you didn't think of me," he joked.

"The last time we talked, you had all the libido of Peter Pan, so no, you weren't on my list for possessing that skills set. You weren't on my list for a lot of things, but much of what I was taking for granted about you this morning has changed."

Adam thought there might be a little remorse behind that statement. He had been staring at the opal as it spun on the tabletop between his hands, but now he looked up into the sorcerer's piercing blue eyes. "Please enlighten me because all I have are guesses."

"I don't have much more than that, Adam, but I do have some theories and perhaps a test or two to point us in the right direction."

"Let's do it then."

"First, tell me, how would you describe the place we're in?"

"This is my home. It started off in Bruce's imagination, but now I'm not so certain where it is."

"At what point do you think it may have stopped being in his imagination?"

"Last May, when we met you and once Bruce set me free. The place you took us was so beautiful. I wanted something like that. When we were back in Bruce's head and I was finally able to go where I once lived, I went back to what I'd built for us since I'd first taught myself how to build constructs and amuse Bruce, but almost all of it was gone. Most of it had been wiped clean, but of the parts that were still present there weren't two rocks or bricks left stacked together. There was nothing but rubble for miles and miles: no Rivendell or Lonely Mountain, no Oz, no Treasure Island, no Pern, or even the Robinson's tree house left. It broke me. All I could do was wander in the rubble and the blankness for a few days. I'm still not certain which one of us did it—for all I know it was the Gamma's doing during all the early insanity right after the accident. However it occurred, I promised myself this would never happen again. I put up what I thought were firewalls to contain any future destruction, but now I don't think that's what I did. Is it, Stephen?"

The sorcerer could see how painful it was for Adam to share this information. "You made your home safe, Adam. No one can fault you for that. I'm sorry you went back to such devastation. Forgive me, but it does fit some of Bruce's self-destructive tendencies."

Adam shook his head, "I didn't tell him. Please don't tell, Bruce."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Adam." The former physician changed the subject. "I've been doing some reading about dimensional expansion. Generally speaking, dimensions do not exist within other dimensions with the exception of very small and contained pocket dimensions. For example, bags of holding or the TARDIS would be considered types of pocket dimensions."

"Things larger on the inside than the outside," Adam noted.

"Correct. However, another kind that exists parallel to ours that overlaps it is the Mirror Dimension. The reason I'm bringing this up is I think we can do a simple test. If we're still in Bruce's head, it won't manifest, but if you've made or found a separate dimension, there should be a Mirror Dimension to it."

"Will there be any negative consequences if it fails? I don't want to hurt Bruce."

"No, he won't even be aware of it. The spell will just fail."

"All right. Give it a go then," Adam agreed.

Strange stood up and faced away from the table and toward the backdoor. He waved his right hand in a clockwise motion and then tapped and glass-like shards became visible. Adam was standing just to the side of the sorcerer's right shoulder when Strange turned his head and laughed. "Congratulations, we're not in Kansas, Toto."

Adam had grown quite pale. "So that's a Mirror Dimension?"

"Yes, it's a good place to practice magic safely or observe your reality from without being seen." Strange looked at Adam. "Are you all right? You're not looking well." He dismissed his spell and turned to Adam. "Sit down," he said as he guided Adam to a chair. "Bruce mentioned he tends to run hot. Do you, too?"

"Yes," he acknowledged. "I think I've been running on Gamma reserves longer than I should. I'm not tapped out, but something doesn't feel right. I'm lightheaded and hurting a bit in the middle." With that, his stomach growled.

"I'll ask the obvious," Strange said, "when was the last time you ate?"

"I don't eat. The only times I have as Hulk it made Bruce ill."

"You don't eat here? You did have coffee with Bruce and me earlier."

"I only did that to be sociable. I have a running debate going with Raven over whether food is even real here."

"Let me see your hand," the former physician demanded. Adam complied and Strange pinched the skin on the back of his hand to see if it sprang back. "Adam, you're dehydrated." He turned and looked through the cupboards for a drinking glass." I don't care whether or not you think this is real. You're going to drink some water."

"To the left of the sink. I'm not arguing with you. The evidence is mounting against my hypothesis, so I have no trouble changing it."

Strange let the water run for a moment before thrusting the glass under the stream and filling it. "Drink this down."

Adam drank the clear liquid without complaining and set the glass on the table.

Strange asked, "Do you have anything easy to digest around here?" Adam stared at him blankly. "Seriously? You had cocoa mix before."

"It was there because Bruce imagined it and knew what it tasted like."

"Can't you imagine what farina or mashed bananas taste like?"

"I don't even know what the first one is, but I know about banana splits. Okay, would ice cream work?"

"It wouldn't be a bad start. Do it."

Adam got up from the table and opened the freezer door. There were several plastic dishes with flavors he'd tasted the day before at the ice cream shop in Cincinnati. He picked out the blue cotton candy flavored one and the bowl of Dutch chocolate. He placed the chocolate ice cream on the table in front of Stephen's chair and the blue ice cream in front of his own. Adam retrieved a couple of spoons from the silverware drawer and slid one across to Strange. "Sit down. It's Dutch Chocolate. I promise it's excellent. I imagined a Madagascar Vanilla if you're allergic or like vanilla or something."

"All right. In the interest of being sociable then," Strange said as he sat down. "Pray tell what is that blue stuff you're eating?" he asked with a dubious look.

"Cotton candy flavored. Wow, this is pretty cold."

"Don't eat it too fast or you'll get brain freeze."

"Is that a real medical condition?" Adam enquired.

"It happens when the blood vessels in your upper palate constrict and then expand suddenly and it interferes with the flow of blood. It can be very painful but it only lasts a few minutes."

"Good thing to know," Adam said between bites.

"You're right. This is good ice cream," Stephen admitted. "However, your body is real and you're not going to survive on even the best ice cream alone. If you're willing, I'd like to propose an experiment. I'm reasonably certain my physical body could survive here. I think it's also the case that you could survive in normal reality. The stone and lilac sprig you gave me made it through intact and without complications. They appear to be quite stable and operate using the same rules of physics."

"'Anna was able to make some sort of portal using the connection we shared and water or mist to bring her physically through. She said it was possible for me to return with her, but we didn't know what that would mean for Bruce or Hulk. We agreed to take our time and make certain it was safe first."

"That's a wise decision because there could be some serious complications. Wait here for me. I think I know someone who might help." The sorcerer stood and faded.

Adam blinked the dishes away to recycle the matter. He pulled the stone from his pocket and laid it on the table beside the opal. He'd studied the map and the distance between his green dot and her gold one. Bruce had been right about it looking like Yggdrasil because the tree was a metaphor for existence and included the Nine Realms from its top to its roots. The green dot wasn't far from Midgard while the gold one was beyond Asgard. He wondered what 'Anna was doing. She'd called him a "little god" when she first saw him. It was meant as an insult, but she probably sensed the nature and scale of what he'd done better than he understood it. She recognized he and his realm were real from the start. Adam simply thought of himself as some sort of an idiot savant who stumbled into bigger things while solving smaller problems. He certainly didn't think of himself as a god. He was unique, yes. His circumstances were unusual, but other than that, he really didn't feel special even if his circumstances were. So far he hadn't hurt or killed anyone with what he'd made. He really wanted to keep it that way. How had Bruce put it? _Hulk smashes. Banner builds._ Well, surprise, he'd built _something_ all right.

He sensed Strange and someone else were coming and granted them access as orange sparks appeared in a circular pattern before the backdoor. The fireworks soon broadened into a wheel of fire, and Adam stood up to face whomever was stepping through the portal. The sparks opened into a wider circle revealing what Adam thought might be a library on the other side of the portal. Strange stepped through and Adam knew this was no astral projection but the man inhabiting his actual corporal form. The Sorcerer Supreme breathed in deeply to test the atmosphere and grinned, "I think it's a go, Adam." He stepped further into the room and turned to introduce a squarely-built man of Asian descent standing just on the other side of the fiery portal. "Adam Banner, may I introduce Master Wong. He is one of my teachers from the Kamar-Taj. Luckily, he was available to act as a backup for me in case that little stunt didn't work and he's going to help me examine you if you're willing to submit to one."

Adam nodded, "You are welcome here, Master Wong, for as long as you mean no harm to me or mine. Come and go in peace."

Wong stepped through the portal, and it closed behind him in one last shower of orange sparks. He looked around the room before his gaze settled on Adam, "This is definitely the homiest dimension I've ever seen. Thank you for letting me enter, Mr. Banner."

Adam stepped forward and offered his hand, "You're welcome. Please, call me Adam. May I offer you some tea or coffee?"

"Please put some water on to boil, Adam. However, I've brought the tea and a few other things," Wong said as he set a rather large knapsack and a brown handled shopping bag on the table. Adam was pretty certain the Master didn't have those in hand as he came through the portal, but that really didn't surprise him. He filled the copper-bottomed kettle at the sink and then turned on a gas burner on the stove under the kettle.

Adam leaned back against the counter and watched his two guests unpack the knapsack and the shopping bag. He recognized the incense, medicinal herbs, and the purifying sage, so he guessed there was going to be a ritual of some sort performed. "Gentlemen, what's the plan?" he asked.

"Number one, you're going to eat this soup before it gets cold," Strange told him and slid a plastic container across the table to him. Adam opened the lid and recognized the savory umami smell of hot and sour soup, one of Bruce's favorites. His stomach growled quite audibly and they all three men laughed.

"Good call, Stephen," Wong said as he finished unpacking a set of small stone figures. "Adam, you are definitely running on empty." Strange had both an incense crucifer and a shell with sage smudge ready to light and what looked like some wooden jewelry caskets containing who-knew-what lined up. Adam retrieved a soupspoon from the silverware drawer and took a tentative first bite. As with his other senses, he felt like a layer of insulation had been removed because everything smelled and tasted richer and deeper than he was accustomed to experiencing through his brother. He would have liked to have taken his time and just enjoyed the pleasures of eating, but what the sorcerers were doing was far too engrossing.

"So, is it a purification ritual or an exorcism you're planning first?" Adam asked between mouthfuls.

"It's actually closer to a diagnostic tool," Master Wong explained. "As I understand it, you've been connected very intimately to your brother for most of your life because of lacking a corporal body. Now that you have a physical body, are you still connected to him? Are you still connected to the Gamma—for lack of a better name for it—or are you completely independent from them? If not, what is the source of your energy? Because you are most definitely tapping into a substantial power source to do this," Wong concluded with a nod to acknowledge the rest of Adam's dimension beyond the room.

Adam set the empty soup container in the sink with his spoon. He certainly felt better with a full stomach. "Just a suggestion, don't you think we should consult Bruce or at least tell him to sit down if this might effect him?"

Wong gave Strange a reproachful look, "I believe I brought that up."

"Oh, all right. What should I tell him?" Stephen asked.

"Ask him to please sit quietly for the next thirty minutes or so," suggested Master Wong.

"He's not done his full yoga routine in a couple of days. Suggest he give that a try," Adam offered, trying to be helpful. Strange shook his head, pulled out his cellphone, and tapped out a text, but he laid it on the table without sending it. He then pulled out what looked like a pair of brass knuckles, which he placed on his left hand while he gestured with his right hand and moved it in a counterclockwise circle. A smaller version of the fiery portal opened and Strange took up his phone and stuck his arm through into his library until the screen showed a full compliment of bars before he pressed send. He waited until it noted the message was received before pulling his arm back, but before he could close the portal, Bruce had texted back, "WHY?" to his request.

"Just tell him it's a diagnostic test and he'll understand," Adam suggested. "Using 'please' doesn't hurt either."

The sorcerer was fighting off an exasperated sigh and an eye roll. "Smile and give him a thumbs up," said Strange and he took a selfie with both of them in it. "We'll see if a picture speaks a thousand texts." He typed a short message and held the phone through the portal to send the message. "If I knew where he was in Cincinnati, I'd just go get him," Stephen grumbled under his breath as he closed the portal.

Adam was watching everything Strange did intently. "I know exactly where he is. Let me try."

Wong chuckled, and Strange turned and gave his old mentor a disapproving look. As an acolyte, it had taken him an unusually long time before Stephen was able to open a portal, so it was a bit of a sore spot with him. "Adam, I know you're quite talented, but opening a portal takes practice."

"You concentrate and envision the destination then you gather inward fire and outward air with your counterclockwise gesture to open the portal," Adam theorized.

Wong tried unsuccessfully to stifle a snort, "He's pretty close."

"All right, Adam," Strange invited him with a bowing gesture. "Have a go then." He clearly thought the novice was going to fall on his face, which always made Adam more stubbornly determined than ever. He and Bruce had that in common.

Adam relaxed and thought of the bedroom in Bruce's suite at the Cincinnatian. He held out his left hand with the palm facing the anticipated doorway, knowing he didn't have the odd brass jewelry as a focusing object and compensating for it. With his right hand he mimicked Strange's two-fingers to palm and three digits out hand gesture and pulled strings of fire-fueled energy from inside and combined them with the force of the air to create the portal's tunnel. As he moved his right hand in a counterclockwise motion, sparks began to appear and the portal began to form . . .

"Adam, stop. I'm sorry. Let's do this right," Strange said, feeling suddenly remorseful and a bit alarmed at how easily the magic was coming for the beginner.

Adam dropped his hands and relaxed, making his face a pleasant mask as 'Anna had described while he absorbed the energy back into himself. He looked at Strange intently, but he remained respectfully silent and waited for the sorcerer to go on. The last thing he wanted to do was weird out a potential teacher by showing off.

"My apologies, Adam. That was very rude of me. Here," Stephen took the ring off and handed it to Adam. "This is called a sling ring. It's designed to help you focus and stabilize the portal. You were doing fine without it, but we don't want a collapse at a critical moment."

"It's okay, Stephen. I understand. Do we really need Bruce here or not?" Adam asked as he examined and analyzed the ring for future reference before he handed it back.

Strange and Wong looked at each other before Wong spoke, "No, we don't, but depending upon what we find, we'll need to bring him in to discuss possible repercussions. However, that can wait."

Adam nodded. Although he'd been eager to learn how to make a portal, he didn't want to drag Bruce away from what he was doing in Cincinnati for nothing. If Bruce disappeared, everyone was going to freak out. _Repercussions, always repercussions_. "Okay, then what can I do? What do you have planned?"

"You've probably never had an MRI, have you?" Stephen asked.

"Well . . . I'm going to take the Fifth on that."

Strange looked at him with surprise, guessing rightly that Adam was implying his alter ego had been scanned. "Okay, I'm going to pretend I didn't ask. Let's just say you're going to have to be still while we take some readings."

"I think I can do that," Adam said, biting back on the snark he felt coming on. The teakettle finally came to a boil and the clear whistle cut through the air. Adam was nearest the stove, so he turned off the gas and moved the kettle to a different burner as the whistling died down. He used Wong's tea that the Master had laid on the stove to make a pot of tea, letting it steep three minutes before removing the leaves.

As he turned around, Adam noted that Wong and Strange had cleared a space in the middle of the room and set up the eight stone statues in a circle on the floor. "Please take off your shoes and lay down with your head in this direction and your feet down there," Master Wong instructed. Adam complied, lay down on his back, and stared up at the ceiling while Stephen sat down at his feet and Wong stationed himself near his head. "The first part is a purification ritual, so just relax." It only took a few minutes for the incense to make Adam feel drowsy. "It's okay if you fall asleep, Adam," Wong told him. His eyelids kept getting heavier until finally he closed them. Wong smiled to himself when he heard Adam's breathing deepen, "I know you're not into the incense, Stephen, but it has its uses."

"He was already dead on his feet," Strange said in a low voice. "It's been an eventful day and it's only half over."

Wong studied his friend, "Please remind me why you've not made more of an effort to train him. His limitations would have been a challenge, but you can't deny the great potential here."

"I didn't want to call attention to him considering what a potential target his brother already is. Also, Adam is managing rather well on his own, considering his situation." Wong's look was still quite reproachful. "I've been monitoring him as I can, but clearly I should have been more hands-on. I had no clue he'd be making friends across the galaxy today. I had seen Nix in his future, but I thought it would be because Bruce traveled there."

Wong harrumphed. "The Kamar-Taj has several Masters who are well qualified to work with him. If you're too busy, I must insist that you name someone to go over the basics with him before he finds his own teacher or something unfortunate happens."

"You're right. I'll speak to him before we leave." Wong nodded his approval.

The two masters set the incense and herbs aside and worked to cast their a spells in earnest. First came a protection spell that sealed the room and prevented outside interference and contamination. The next was a spell for identifying and tracing energy patterns. It was particularly useful for finding blockages and isolating problems, but Strange had found he could read it like a 3D scan of mystic energies. He was rather surprised that Adam's aura flickered and shifted before settling into a blue and green pattern. "Why do you think it's doing that?" he asked Wong.

"How long did you say he's been in this body?"

"He probably started building it early last May," Strange estimated.

"That is impressive. Children's auras tend to shift more than an adult's. He's still new in his corporal home," Wong concluded. "It is interesting how contrary the two aura colors are and they seem to flicker as if there are two rather than resolving somewhere in between or settling on one."

"There are two. In fact, I'm certain he still has access to Hulk, so that's probably what's happening. All right, let's see how the energies are flowing and then the chakras." The two moved their hands in unison and released a small amount of psychic energy that settled like a golden dome or bubble over the circle to see what part of Adam naturally pulled at it or repulsed it. The energy kept its equilibrium going for several seconds until it slowly collapsed straight down into him and Adam gave a sharp intake of breath but didn't awake.

"Before you ask, Stephen, no, I've never seen that before" Wong noted with surprise. "Usually, energy attracts like to like, and it will travel to the base chakra at the bottom of the spine or a chakra that's a little higher."

"That sounds like something is blocked. Before today, I would have said his sacral chakra was off balance. His creative energies are at the top of the chart, but he has been repressing the sexual side of that energy—a total denial of his status and power as an adult in order to avoid conflict."

"Not into adulting?" Wong asked. "Too much responsibility?"

"No, he's as responsible of a person as his brother, but adult males in his formative experiences have been abusive or out of control. Why be like that if you can regulate and slow down your development to avoid being an aggressor or an abuser?"

Strange languidly waved his hand over the lower part of Adam's torso and pulled up an image of a red rotating wheel of light from Adam's lower spine. He and Wong both watched it for a moment and concluded there were no problems with its speed or balance and replaced it. Strange repeated the gesture a few inches higher on Adam's torso, just below his navel, before pulling out the orange sacral wheel and watching it rotate.

"Well, it appears Peter Pan's time in Neverland has come to an end," Wong noted. "At least the chakra looks well balanced between creative and sexual energy."

Strange studied the wheel's speed and rotation. "And his denial ended with something much louder than a whimper."

Wong gave another harrumph, "Would you have expected less from someone who faced down and then won over a triune goddess?"

"My, gossip travels fast," Strange noted with dry disapproval.

"Gossip, my foot. That's a prophecy. If you paid attention to the incoming reports, you'd know the Bells of Nix rang a little over three hours ago."

"Isn't that overdoing the fertility ritual a bit?"

"It had nothing to do with that type of consummation. The three bells rang to acknowledge what SHE did—not what he did or they might have done together. She found someone who is compatible with the Goddess, the Dragon, and the Mortal Queen. It confirmed the passing of a test, which hasn't happened in living memory—centuries, in fact. They rang because a ruler of Nix has found a match: nothing more. Even if nothing happens between them, her successful hunt strengthens the monarchy and gives the queen breathing room and good will."

"It still sounds a bit ominous," Strange considered.

"Only if you've picked a fight with Nix or were planning on it. They're not known for making plans of conquest, but there are radical factions there who would like to depose the monarchy and seek retribution and empire and spoils with a sword. Hoggoth knows they've been on the opposite end of that calculation often enough."

Stephen hadn't considered that. "Any idea who stands to gain if Nix's influence is waxing instead of waning?"

"As you know, the Nixians have their grievances with any number of warlike races, but the Badoon and Sakaarans are the most recent. I'm sure Asgard will take notice since Nix is under its protection."

"So what is the prophecy connected to this?"

"Nothing too apocalyptic. Avoid getting in a fight with them while their thrice-blessed queen reigns. Ah, yes, and hope she doesn't take a fancy to war because Nix will bathe in the blood of their foes or something like that."

"Just another Friday night in that sector of the galaxy, and we still have no idea who's likely orchestrating this other than the usual suspects."

"Don't waste your time worrying about it then. Let's get the answers we can find here and help your friends. The better Adam's spiritual and mental health, the more likely he'll make sound decisions," Master Wong concluded.

Stephen nodded and finally replaced the image of Adam's sacral wheel. "At least her majesty set this to rights. No more blockage." He then move up to the solar plexus and examined its yellow gold wheel and replaced it. Adam's heart chakra shown bright green as Strange pulled it forth for inspection. "How did I know joy and compassion would be his forte?" the sorcerer murmured as he shook his head.

Wong smiled, "It's not a surprise. Overcoming trauma in one area can enhance strengths in others. This chakra is in fine shape. Let's see the last three before he wakes up." They moved on to the throat and coaxed its blue wheel to turn a bit faster before returning it, hoping to encourage communication. The third eye of clairvoyance was a bright indigo and the crown chakra of the higher self a still brighter violet. Both turned steadily, so neither required any adjustment.

As the final wheel sank back into place at the top of Adam's head, both masters gestured and the stone figures glowed to start the next part of the evaluation. One by one the statues connected with lines of white energy that arched over Adam's body. Strange and Wong lowered their hands and then raised them and Adam's body began to float. Wong gestured with one of his hands and Adam's arms and legs stretched out so they were extended from his torso.

Soon, the light grid intersected and mapped out Adam's body. Strange stood up to have a better view of what the spell revealed. An outline of Adam's form glowed through his clothing. Strange gestured with his arms in angular directions to move past the surface and into the types of energies that followed the bloodstream and then the neuropaths, looking for anything unusual. That's when the bones began to glow a pale green that darkened considerably in the longer, larger bones. A similar glow in blue came into focus throughout Adam's body with a higher concentration along his hips, shoulders, and spinal column.

Wong had also stood up to get a better look. "Stephen, notice the energy hidden in the marrow of the bones? It's like a well: it runs so deep. I think that's the power source. It's not the one he was drawing from when he created the portal, but it's quite considerable. I'm sure it's what he's drawn on to create everything here."

"It's what he calls the Gamma. Be careful. It has a baseline sentience, and it's usually angry," Strange warned.

Wong warily probed the image and easily found what Strange had described. The entity was clearly taxed or it would have had a more aggressive resistance, yet he could tell it was more than just an unhappy or negative presence. If fact, it was destructive and wanting to lash out. "You weren't kidding. I think this something has attached itself to the energy. It knows we're scanning it." The older man paced before he turned back to address his companion. "Stephen, you weren't around to see the last exorcism done at the temple."

"No, but I've heard and read about it. A malevolent ancestral spirit possessed a child, and it resisted letting her go."

"It took three days: one to diagnose the problem and two to remove it. The girl was in a coma recovering for a month afterward before she finally woke up."

"So you think this is something similar?" Strange asked.

"It has that same angry possessive feel to it, but it's not something that's attached itself later like a parasite. This thing seems to have been incorporated as part of the power source. I doubt that we could remove it without destroying his body or unleashing the power. Probably not something we want to do since it would create the equivalent of a gamma bomb blast."

"Definitely not," Stephen agreed. "I think we're going to have to leave well enough alone for now. On the brighter side, look at how efficiently his body is storing the radiation and not being damaged by it. Adam said he'd not really eaten before today, so he's been running completely off the Gamma as he's built this place and his body. Unbelievable. I would bet he's taken several steps forward in his genetics, but we'll leave it up to him to follow up on his own."

"Well, he's still human in every way that counts, so I don't think the genes matter so much where we're concerned," Master Wong noted.

Stephen stroked his beard and smiled, "He's more human than most who were brought up to be."

Both men studied the images playing across and through Adam for a few more minutes before acknowledging they'd learned everything they could for the time being. They sat back down and gently lowered Adam onto the floor and dispersed the energy from the statues.

"I always hate waking people when they look this peaceful," Wong said. "The only chakra we adjusted was the throat, so let's hope it helps with his communication and expression of ideas."

"He's already come so far. Even when he's Hulk, you might not think they were the same person from nine months ago," the sorcerer mused and he stroked his beard.

Wong continued to study Adam's face, "Do you think he's still the Hulk?"

"I'm pretty certain. He has the Gamma, and the cell clusters that showed blue are most likely part of the condition as well, but we will have to see if he can physically transform. I'm not sure where this leaves Bruce and whether he'd have control or Adam would if he can still manifest. The worst case scenario is that he could still physically become Hulk, but neither of them have control."

"Best case?" Wong asked.

"Well, that really depends upon one's perspective. Bruce views his condition as a curse, so I imagine he'd be happy to be rid of the transformations. I'm not so certain about Adam. As long as one of them is able to control the Hulk, the rest of us can breathe a lot easier."

Although he knew he might regret it later, Wong came to a decision. "Stephen, if you're too busy to take him on as an acolyte, I'd be willing to work with him. He's done well enough on his own so far, but we both know he's going to need a lot more guidance."

Strange nodded. He felt like he'd dropped the ball on this one, so he was glad to have the offer. "Let's work out a plan together and see if he's willing."

Wong nodded his approval and turned back to Adam's prone figure. With his right forefinger he traced a symbol of blessing on Adam's forehead and he stirred. Adam sat up and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He turned and looked at both men. "Please, I want you to teach me. I know enough to get into trouble and almost enough to be dangerous. That's not going to work if I'm around people. Please help me so I don't hurt anyone."

Wong and Strange both smiled at each other. "Lesson one," Master Wong said, "Go pour the tea before it gets stone cold. I'm not at all fond of cold tea."

Adam eagerly rolled to his feet. "Cold tea won't be a problem, Master Wong. I have warm hands."

Wong turned to say something to Stephen, but the Sorcerer Supreme spoke first, "No, you may not have him all to yourself."

 **End Notes:** Don't worry, we're getting to more Bruce x Natasha next chapter, but there are mysteries to solve and presentations to give and much more coming.

This is the last week of classes and next week is finals, so I'm going to be pretty busy getting grades done. It may be another three weeks for the next installment, but rest assured it is coming!

So who's Hulk or not? What's with the Gamma? What does Bruce think of that selfie with Stephen and Adam? Adam may be ready for the world, but is it ready for him? Have you ever dreamed you were a dragon?

Hope you enjoyed Wong. We'll see more of him and Strange as we get Adam settled.

Still living for the comments!


	56. Chapter 56

**Chapter 56: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dinner**

 **Summary:** Bruce and Nat like to compare notes. Bruce and Adam field-test some theories with a little help from Strange and Wong. Nat gets picked up for a dinner date.

 **Notes:** Patience. There's a reason or two for the last three chapters. As always, my thanks to Autumn_Froste for the Beta-help! No music, but lots of feels!

They'd been on the phone discussing quantum mechanics of all things as Bruce tried to explain what he thought may have happened with Adam when Bruce had a text arrive from Stephen Strange. Bruce had explained who Strange was before, but this time she looked him up on one of the old SHIELD databases, while Bruce finished texting back and forth with the former surgeon. She remembered Jasper Sitwell spitting out Strange's name right next to Bruce's when she and Steve had interrogated the HYDRA double-agent about Project Insight on a DC rooftop. That had been right before SHIELD fell and the Winter Soldier took Sitwell permanently out of the picture.

She knew Bruce had worked with Strange before and considered him an ally, but her fiancé didn't offer many details except that the man knew Adam, too. The files she was studying hadn't been updated in a while, so Natasha resorted to Google and pulled up information about the surgeon's car accident that had ended his medical career and then an odd announcement in the Village Voice stating he held the title "Sorcerer Supreme" and could be reached at an address on Bleeker Street down in Greenwich Village.

She'd actually grumbled aloud, "Chort Vozmi?" That got Bruce's attention away from the equations he was multi-tasking over on a Starkpad.

"What's the matter, Nat?"

"'Sorcerer Supreme'? What is that? I knew he was a spiritualist, but isn't this a little . . ."

"It's a little hard to explain plausibly without showing you what he does, but Strange protects the earth from mystical threats. I know that sounds hokey, but he's been really supportive with Adam and he's helped us move forward."

"Okay, I've seen plenty of weirder things, so I'm going to take your word on him. Well, what did he have to say?"

"I just forwarded you a picture. Stephen and one of his colleagues are doing some diagnostic work with Adam, and we all seem to be headed in the same direction with our theories though we're coming at it from different angles. Tell me what you see in the picture, Nat."

The picture arrived and she pulled it up. For a brief second, she thought it was Bruce, but the expression and haircut were wrong, and then she focused in on the eyes and knew it was Adam. Within a heartbeat she realized the impossibility of the picture. After the next heartbeat, she recognized the kitchen from Dayton in the background from one of the very few pictures she'd seen of Bruce's mother. She remembered the cherry pattern of the drapes from the old Polaroid and the cabinets and sink. The other man taking the selfie with the neat beard and graying temples had to be Stephen Strange, which meant he was physically there with the camera to take the picture, which meant either they'd gone back in time to the real house from Bruce's childhood or Adam's version of it was physically "real" enough for him to live and breathe.

"Oh, bozhe moi, is this real? It doesn't look Photo-shopped, Bruce. Are they really in Adam's space?" She stared at the picture. Adam had a bit of beard stubble and there were dark circles under his eyes. The picture had caught him just as he had started to smile. His eyes were definitely green while Strange's were a piercing blue. The former physician looked like he'd had a long day already, too.

Bruce answered very quietly, "Yes, it's real, which means . . ."

"Adam has made himself . . ."

"A body."

"A real, solid body?"

"Yes."

"How did he do it?"

"I wish I knew, Natasha." She could picture Bruce running his hand through his hair and scratching the back of his head as he paced.

"How did he make his . . . world?"

"Strange and I both think he's made it a dimension of its own."

"It's not inside your head is it?" she asked in a low voice.

"No, we're pretty sure that's not the case," Bruce said with a chuckle. "We're not sure how it happened, but it probably dates back to our reconciliation. I gave him plenty of space and time to recover while I was in hiding. I just assumed he was rebuilding in the same inner space, but that doesn't seem to be what happened."

"So we've been there," she said thoughtfully.

"Yes, we were just there earlier in our astral forms, but apparently we could physically be there as well."

"Wow, the possibilities," she mused. "Do you think he can come over into our reality?"

Bruce was quiet for moment. "I am fairly certain he can, but . . . we're trying to figure out what the repercussions might be before trying it. The samples have held up like they were created here, but a human body is much more complex. We're not even certain how robust his immune system is yet."

"Please, promise me you're not going to try something crazy, at least while you're out of town."

"I don't intend to, but if an emergency happens that requires or brings out Hulk, we may be winging it like crazy. Trust me, none of us want that."

"Do you think you'll be able to Hulk out?"

"I think I can still change, but we're not sure who will be in charge or if neither of us will be."

"Bruce . . ."

"Before you get upset with me, Natasha, I almost have this figured out, but we'll need to try a few small tests in Adam's space where we can't hurt anyone."

"Bruce!"

"I promise, we will be okay. If one of us gets out of control, Strange is there as a backup. We can't have Hulk mindless. I don't want to take that risk."

She still growled at him, but Natasha understood why he needed to know. Bruce had come too far to lose control again, and she was certain Adam felt the same way. The specter of Johannesburg played heavily into both men's thinking. "What are you going to do?"

"Go to Adam's dimension and see what happens when either of us Hulks out."

"What is Strange ready to do if you go savage?"

"I didn't ask the specifics, but it's probably a better strategy for me not to know," Bruce reasoned.

"Well, I can't fault that. I'm going to give you an hour before I go nuts."

"I think that will be enough to get some answers," he said. "I love you, Nat."

"Take good care of yourself," she ordered.

"I belong to you," he answered back brightly with a riff on the song lyric.

"I love you, too," she reminded him, and they hung up.

Pepper had left a message that she'd be working late and then she had nearly forgotten there was a fundraiser to attend in Tony's stead. However, she'd see Natasha in the morning for the doctor's appointment. Nick checked in with her briefly before heading down to work in the R&D labs. He was even more tightlipped than normal about what he was doing, so she didn't push him. She figured Friday would let her know if his project was that unusual. After a fruitless hour of sifting through the dark Internet searching for information on their assailants and the weird pendants, she'd had a text from Bruce followed by several pictures. The text consisted of a thumbs-up emoji and "So far, so good. Adam first." She finally let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

The first picture was of Hulk who was sitting calmly cross-legged in a circle of glowing blue sigils on what looked like the driveway in front of Tony's lodge. It was taken from about ten feet away and he was smiling almost shyly and giving a thumbs-up sign. She noted he was wearing an older gray version of the uniform pants. As she enlarged the picture, she was sure this was Adam behind the deep green eyes and verdant façade. She guessed Bruce had probably taken the picture.

The next picture was of Bruce, who was obviously very excited. She knew this by the way he balanced on the balls of his feet. The goofy grin on his face as he stood next to Hulk, who was also wearing a lopsided smile as he crouched on one knee, also gave it away. Bruce stood to Hulk's right with his left hand resting on Adam's massive shoulder. The lodge was in the background and a stocky bald-headed man in what appeared to be monks' robes stood by watching with his arms crossed stoically across his chest. Natasha was guessing both these pictures had been taken in Adam's dimension and not Upstate New York, which was still hip-deep in snow. Strange likely took this one.

The third picture was of Bruce and Adam post-Hulk-out with their arms draped across each other's shoulders. Bruce still looked thrilled as he smiled affectionately at his brother. As she looked closer, Natasha realized Bruce was assisting Adam with his shoulder underneath his brother's right arm. Adam was bare-chested and looked tired but happy as he leaned on Bruce for support. Natasha could tell they were enjoying just being together. Nine months ago no one would have imagined Bruce being seen next to Hulk much less reacting in such a positive way. In fact, Bruce really hadn't seen Hulk from the outside before, so that probably explained some of the excitement as well.

Another text from Bruce pinged in: "I Hulk soloed fine without A." This was followed by a selfie taken by Adam with a grinning brown-eyed Hulk next to him, giving his thumbs-up. Natasha smiled because there was no doubt Bruce was in there behind the Big Guy's warm expression. She'd have to ask him, but this may have been the first time Bruce was completely in charge of that massive green body by himself.

Adam looked a little more confident and relaxed than the earlier picture. He had on a blue button-down shirt, and she noted he seemed to have adapted to using the phone just fine. Natasha wondered how he was doing on the inside. Even more so than his brother, Adam had experienced significant upheaval several times in his life, but this had to be one of the biggest shifts yet. She hoped that he'd been able to talk to someone and not kept his thoughts and feelings completely to himself. Fewer than 24 hours ago, she'd sat beside him on the couch as he attempted to find and hold his adult form.

As she studied his face in the photographs, he looked increasingly more confident and reminded her of the Big Guy she knew. Although she felt apprehensive about this female who'd connected with him, it was primarily because she wanted to protect him, which was why she was ready to argue with Bruce when necessary. Right now she was alarmed by how fast Adam might be slipping away. It was like someone had just tossed the keys of a sports car with a full tank of gas into a 16-year-old's lap. She knew he was being tempted with things he'd probably never even considered before today. Natasha reminded herself this was the Big Guy, her friend and partner who had even stood with her when she'd disagreed with Bruce. He'd promised to always have her back, and he'd kept his word to her ever since.

So deep was Natasha in her thoughts that she almost jumped as a new text from Bruce arrived. "News nearly as good on our side of reality. Left A in his dimension. Able to transform and stay in control with us both present." A picture similar to the first one popped up. Hulk was seated inside another circle of glowing blue sigils. This time he looked more serious, almost melancholic, and he had two thumbs up. She noted the newer purple uniform pants and enlarged the picture. His eyes were curiously expressive and definitely Bruce's dark brown. She noticed the background scene was now an interior and there was an oddly fragmented, mirror-like quality to it. Yet, she was relatively certain it was a hotel room revealed in fragments. "Looks like it's still a package deal on our side of reality."

The next picture showed Bruce, looking tired but still fairly positive with another thumbs-up. He had a blanket across his shoulders and was bare-chested, so he'd just transformed back. "Not solo here, but well under control." Then Natasha finally did allow herself a sigh of relief. Bruce had probably been hoping on some level that he wouldn't be able to Hulk-out anymore. She didn't want to admit it to Bruce, but she was secretly relieved to know she hadn't lost her field partner. Objectively, she could categorize his presence as just another tool in the Avengers' kit, but he'd become such an integral part of her field repertoire when the heavy artillery was needed that it left a hole in her routine and the team's not to have him. Who was she kidding, it just felt wrong not to have Adam and Bruce at her back when the shit started to fly. Bruce might not admit it, but she was certain he and Adam both felt the same way.

She texted him back, "Are you done hypothesis testing for the day?"

He quickly responded back, "Mostly. A has picked up some interesting skills. Heading back to his side to go over them before S at al. leave."

She texted back: "I'll be here. Call me when u can." He sent back purple and green heart emojis, which Natasha noted with a smile was a first for Bruce. She made a mental note to have Lila and Cooper teach Uncle Bruce a thing or two about apps the next time they visited.

A half hour later came the text from Bruce: "Feeling up to a date?"

She texted back: "Skype or phone?"

"Face to face."

"Funny physicist."

"I'm serious. Dress for dinner and a lecture. U will need a warm coat and an overnight bag."

"How?"

"It's a surprise c/o A."

"I have a doctor's appointment early."

"Not a problem. We'll have u back. Promise."

"OK."

Bruce sent back a smiley emoji, and she laughed. Natasha had no idea what to expect, but she was feeling good enough to put in a light workout and take a shower in plenty of time. She opened her closet door and pulled out a few dresses before she settled on a simple dark green velvet, backless dress which she'd first worn to Tony's Christmas party three years ago. That night she playfully caught Bruce under the mistletoe and kissed him shockingly deep on the mouth. She'd left him with his glasses smudged and traces of her lipstick on his chin that luckily Pepper had pointed out before Tony spotted it. He hadn't been able to look Natasha in the eye for almost two weeks without blushing. It took him a month to find his sarcastic edge again, but she noticed he wasn't avoiding her. In fact, he seemed to have altered his routine to overlap with hers in the early morning. Apparently, the sight of her in workout clothing was worth losing a half hour of sleep for him.

The second time she wore the dress was at a charity gala Tony and Pepper were hosting, and she was working the event for a SHIELD mission, keeping tabs on a foreign diplomat. She was more than happy to see someone had pried Bruce out of the lab and happier still when he was brave enough to ask her to dance. She remembered being a little surprised by how well he waltzed her around the dance floor. His hands had been warm and she welcomed them on her bare back. He'd let his ridiculously short haircut from the previous year grow out, and she'd run her fingers through his unruly dark curls. For once he seemed to have made up his mind to relax and be sociable. He wasn't running or trying to push her away. They talked and danced some more. Unfortunately, since she'd been mixing business with pleasure, she'd literally had to run out on him when her mark left before she or Bruce had gotten bold enough to try something more. She hadn't exactly ditched him since they hadn't come together, but she couldn't explain to him why she had to leave him so abruptly on the dance floor.

It was over a week before they saw each other again during a team mission, and Bruce had clearly decided to back off. He was hiding behind his efficient and professional routine during the team's inbound flight, so she didn't push him. Ten minutes into the fight, there had been a Code Green, so once the mission was wrapping up, she'd followed the sound of smashing to find Hulk. She'd taken to studying him, trying to find an effective way to calm him down. That day there had been a lot of smaller mechs on six legs that reminded her of dog to pony-sized spiders, and the Big Guy was methodically stomping them like aluminum cans and sorting them into piles by size. She watched him, fascinated with his behavior. Once he'd stomped the last one moving and tossed it into the correct pile, she cleared her throat, "Hey, Big Guy, looks like the job's done." He turned and glared at her. She had his attention. "No more spiders for smashing today."

Hulk looked around just to verify she was correct then made a deep gravelly sound she recognized as a chuckle. "Spider for smashing," he said picking up one more mechanical carcass and dropping it in a pile. Then, to her surprise, he came closer and pointed at her, "Spider NOT for smashing." He grinned at her and cocked an eyebrow in a Bruce-like expression as they both laughed. Natasha was always impressed with how well he communicated with his limited vocabulary; however, she was certain he was capable of much, much more if someone could work with him. Bruce had been dead set again it when she brought it up, but on occasions like this when the Big Guy was in a good mood, she did her best to interact with him. She was crouching on a sizable slab of concrete debris, and he carefully sat down close to her on the ground in a rubble-free spot evidently wanting time with her, too.

"Thanks for not smashing me," she told him.

He smiled and nodded before looking quite soberly at her. "'Tasha not smash Bruce." Natasha wasn't sure if that was just a statement, a question, a request, or an imperative. He looked at her expectantly, so he clearly anticipated a response back from her.

"No, I won't hurt Bruce," she promised.

That seemed to satisfy him, and he huffed out a snort of approval. Bruce might not like Hulk, but the Big Guy looked out for him. Hulk was already calming down, but he held out his hand to her with the palm out. She wasn't sure if he was expecting a high five or something else. She'd seen Thor do that with him, and she did not want to be on the losing side of one of those, so she held up her palm to mirror his and shifted it to a palm up position. He looked puzzled, but he mirrored her. She slid down from her perch and slowly approached him. Hulk was covered in dust and mud, but his hands were fairly clean. "You, my friend, could use a bath, a bed, and a lullaby."

He looked up at the sky to the west, "Sun's low. Night come. Hulk rest."

"The sun's getting really low," she agreed. His hands were so large, but she thought he still might like to be touched. As skittish as Bruce was, once he made up his mind that he felt comfortable with it, he was okay with her touching him casually and holding his hand. Perhaps the Big Guy wouldn't mind either. One thing she was sure about as she looked into Hulk's brown eyes up close was that Bruce wasn't far away. In her gut, Natasha knew the two weren't the same person, but Bruce seemed to have some input or influence, especially after the Big Guy started to calm down. Hulk watched her intently as she touched his forearm and ran her fingers down the pulse points at the inside of his elbow and down his forearm to his wrist and across his palm. The pattern was meant to desensitize him, to get him used to human contact that wasn't violent or aggressive. He shivered and rubbed at the back of his neck with his left hand before the shuddering set in and he rolled onto his side, curling into a fetal position as the pain of the transition took hold. This was as close as she'd been to him during a transformation, so she was torn for a moment between watching in fascination as the color retreated from his shrinking limbs to his body's core and giving him some space and a little privacy. She wanted Bruce to have his dignity, so she positioned herself on the far side of the slab and waited for the soft moans to match Bruce's pitch again. She'd brought his fleece pullover and a blanket from the quinjet along with his canvas loafers. "Are you back with me?" she finally asked.

"Yah, I'm okay," Bruce told her. He sounded rough as always at this point. "S-sorry about the lecture."

So he had been there, too, at least for part of the exchange. She stepped around the debris and handed him the pullover. The upgrade to the design of the uniform "stretchy pants" seemed to have worked, but it was hard to tell with all the mud. "I don't mean to hurt you, Bruce," Natasha said earnestly as she knelt beside him.

"It's okay. I just didn't realize you were 'working' when we were dancing the other night, or maybe I could have played it up more for show or been more helpful to you," he said. Obviously, he wanted to have this off his chest or he would have been scolding her for getting too close to Hulk.

"Bruce, I know it's confusing where the work vs. play line is sometimes, but trust me, even when it gets blurry, I'm not working you and I'm not playing you. I should have found some way to tell you what was going on, but I was really enjoying your company. I didn't want to ruin it, but then I ruined it anyway."

"No, you didn't ruin anything, Natasha. I was enjoying being with you, too. I just thought . . . Well, I didn't know what to think when you didn't come back."

"I'm sorry. I had to keep an eye on the mark. I'm just not at liberty to discuss what I'm doing most of the time I'm on a mission." She decided to try and change the subject. "By the way, I had no idea you knew how to ballroom dance."

"Blame my Aunt Susan. She made me take lessons," he explained, sounding a bit self-conscious.

"Well, they paid off." She'd handed him his shoes and soon he was on his feet—shaky, but determined. She wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. This gave her a good excuse to take his arm as they walked back through the rubble to the quinjet. It was hard to explain to him how she felt. Work had brought them together, and they needed to have a healthy working relationship. However, the time they spent on "work" convinced her there was something more there she wanted to explore with him that had nothing to do with being Avengers. She wanted to tell him how much she'd come to admire him. Despite having all the physical power and intellect of a god and genius, he was restrained and gentile, unfailingly kind, even when pushed to exhaustion and in physical and mental pain. He had a healthy ego and a cuttingly sarcastic wit, but he only used these when needed or pushed. As he stumbled, Natasha stepped in closer to help him stay on his feet, and for once he didn't protest and wave her off. Instead, he accepted her support and gave her a thankful smile.

They weren't the first ones back to the jet, but she still managed to get Bruce a few minutes in the lavatory first, so he could clean off the worst of the grime. Once he got out, Bruce was still feeling pretty rough, so after they'd taken off, she eased him out of the seatbelt harness and onto the pallet they kept for such occasions when someone—mostly Bruce—needed to crash. Normally, he curled up in a blanket and everyone left him alone, but this time she grabbed a box of energy bars and a bottle of water with electrolytes and sat down beside him. She unwrapped a bar and fed it to him piece by piece, making him drink between mouthfuls. He ate the second bar unaided and the third, drank down the water, and then he surprised her and laid his head down on her thigh and drifted off into a comatose state while Natasha brushed her fingers through his hair.

Tony and Clint were at the front of the jet discussing weaponry while Thor listened in. In the meantime, Steve had been watching her with a slightly bemused smile. "You seem to have found a method for calming the Big Guy down. I noticed it only took about half the time to get Dr. Banner back today that it used to take six months ago," the soldier noted quietly. "What did you do, sing him a lullaby?"

She smiled inscrutably, "I guess you could call it that. He knew he was done with the mission and felt tired, so he wasn't that difficult to persuade. It's a matter of timing and suggestion more than anything." She gave an incredulous snort, "Bruce still thinks I have a death wish."

"He has a point." Steve kept up his level, blue-eyed stare, waiting out her response.

"I won't deny the very real potential for danger he is, but now that we know each other, we can work together and manage the lethality. I think deep down it's something the Big Guy and Bruce both want, so I'd like to see them both have the opportunity to contribute."

"Can't argue with that. Just keep being careful, Natasha. It would kill him if he hurt you."

She simply nodded in agreement as Bruce adjusted his head on her lap and snored tranquilly. Natasha knew it would kill all three of them.

((o))

Natasha pulled herself out of her memories and put the other two dresses up before putting on the appropriate undergarments and stepping into the green velvet one. One of the reasons she liked it was the hem was long enough to conceal a holster, but it had slits to just above the knee so she could still run or show a little leg. She picked a pair of matching heels and a clutch purse before looking through her jewelry and combs. Bruce had given her a peridot necklace that had been his mother's and she'd since found some earrings to match, so she put those on. She'd left her hair down, so she pulled it back on the sides and secured it with some of her favorite gold combs. The makeup she kept to a minimum except for her eyes. She was out of her usual smudge-proof lipstick, so she went with an older tube a shade darker and tossed it into the purse. Her overnight bag was ready to go and waiting on the coffee table, so she'd texted Bruce to let her know when to head up to the landing pad. She was rather surprised when he said to wait in the apartment. She double-checked everything, gave Friday orders, and paced before sitting down on the couch.

At 5:58pm, another text from Bruce arrived: "Stay clear of the foyer and don't shoot."

That had her intrigued. "Ok. Waiting," she texted back. Natasha considered putting the couch between her and the open space of the foyer, but decided to play it as calmly as she could on the couch. As she stared at the open area, there was an orange glow and then sparks that rotated in a circular motion appeared as quickly as she was on her feet. The wheel of fiery sparks opened up from the center till it reached almost from floor to ceiling. On the other side, she could see a daylight scene she knew must be Adam's version of Tony's Upstate New York property near the lodge.

"I know you can do this without the sling ring, but I insist you keep this one and use it if you're going to make portals. Better safe than sorry where lives are concerned," said a forceful deep voice.

"I'm not disagreeing with you, Stephen, but it's like asking you to wear mittens when you performed brain surgery. The ring dampens down my senses so I can't feel the subtler range of energies," said a somewhat familiar adult male voice.

Natasha moved around the coffee table, so she could get a more squared angle to the gateway's plane and see straight into the portal.

"Hey, I know this is an important discussion, but if you're all agreed this is stable, I'd like to get Natasha," said Bruce.

"Of course, Bruce. It's perfectly safe once it's stable like this," said the first voice.

Just as she could almost see who was speaking, Bruce stepped through the circular opening onto the tile floor. He was wearing one of his new suits in a flecked wool in dark brown that Pepper had insisted on because it matched almost anything. He broke into a smile as soon as he spotted Natasha, and she was in his arms a second later. He smelled of his woodsy aftershave and his own caramel undertones, and he felt so solid and warm under her hands as she ran them up the back of his suit. He hugged her to him, wrapping her tight for a few moments and caressing her back with his warm hands.

"I've missed you so much, Nat," he whispered.

"Tell me something I don't know," she said with a sniffle, trying not to wreck her makeup with tears. They both leaned back to look at one another.

"I have every intention of ruining your lipstick," he told her, his eyes dark and dilated with excitement.

"That's all right. I have plenty more."

He cupped her face with his left hand and leaned down until their lips met. She'd moved her left hand to the back of his neck and opened her mouth to his probing tongue, which she ardently met with hers. His lips slid across hers and down her neck. He gently gnawed over her pulse point with his lips coving his teeth. She bit back a sigh. He knew how to make her melt.

Their embrace didn't end until someone who'd just stepped into the room cleared his throat. "Okay, you two, we're finished arguing for the moment. I believe there were dinner reservations in Cincinnati or something along those lines," Stephen prompted. He'd stepped through the portal and was trying awkwardly not to stare. Both Natasha and Bruce started giggling when they saw the dark red lipstick smeared on their faces. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the coffee table and handed some to Bruce.

"Knew I shouldn't have bothered putting it on yet," Natasha said as she expertly wiped off the smudges before she turned to address the tall stranger. "Hello, I'm Natasha Romanoff. I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Sorry," Bruce quickly interjected as he finished trying to make himself presentable again. "Natasha, this is Doctor Stephen Strange, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. Stephen, this is my fiancé, Natasha Romanoff, a woman of many talents."

"So I understand," the physician said as he offered her his hand. "A pleasure. Thank you for your service with SHIELD."

Natasha almost laughed, but he was obviously being sincere. As she took his hand, she couldn't help but note the scarring she felt there, yet he shook hers quite firmly. "It's nice to finally meet you, Doctor."

"Please, call me Stephen. I understand congratulations are in order," he returned with a genuine smile.

"Yes, thank you, Stephen. It's been a very pleasant surprise with the exception of the morning sickness. You're welcome to call me Natasha, by the way."

"It's too bad everything is happening all at once, but it looks like issues with Adam are settling out. I knew when I first met him that Adam had a natural proclivity for magic, but I didn't in my wildest dreams realize the magnitude of his talents," Strange admitted.

"I don't think any of us did," Bruce noted. "We've all sold him short at some point."

"Well, none of us understood who or what he was until recently, and that includes Adam," she surmised. "Until we're out from under the Agreements, we can't even fully investigate anything to do with Bruce that we're not willing to let go public. Our pregnancy is going to be difficult enough to manage under the Agreements without bringing Adam into the mix. Considering certain parties would like to dissect Bruce, you can just imagine what they would like to do with someone who has no legal status. If anyone took Adam now, we have no way even to prove he exists."

Bruce glanced grimly from one to the other. Leave it to Natasha to articulate the fears that had been brewing in the back of everyone's mind. "It's going to take some time before Adam is ready to come over into our reality because we have some medical-related concerns. That buys us some time."

Natasha gave him a puzzled look. "You're putting him in quarantine?"

"I guess you could call it that," Stephen shrugged, "but it's more of a confinement to make certain we haven't made him ill. He's also been rather intimately exposed to someone from—shall we say—far, far away?"

Natasha closed her eyes and sighed. Bruce's SHIELD file had described his so-called "weaknesses" as chivalry and softheartedness. That's exactly why Fury had first assigned her rather than Phil Coulson to Bruce's case in order to exploit and manipulate those "weaknesses" as needed. (To be fair, off the record, Fury had also approved when she made herself Bruce and Hulk's unofficial handler and advocate.) Of course Adam would likely have tendencies similar to his brother's. "How long is he going to have to wait?"

"Three weeks is the standard period," Strange stated, "but we're in uncharted territory with his metabolism. From what I can tell, his anatomy appears normal, but I'd feel more sure of it if he'd have a full diagnostic work up."

"That's not going to happen for a while," Bruce responded. "I still think his immune system isn't that different from mine. You said yourself that your mystic diagnostics found the Gamma present in his bones and he appears to go through the same transformation process I do. It's not that big of a leap in logic to extrapolate his biology is similar to mine."

"If that's the case, Doc, we all know that's still far from 'normal'," Natasha noted.

"Well, for once that might not be a bad thing," he suggested.

None of them wanted to say it, but they couldn't really discuss Bruce's biology in any depth there. "Maybe we ought to move this discussion into a more secure space," the sorcerer suggested. "We've kept Adam waiting long enough."

"Just a moment," Bruce said, and he walked across the room to the piano bench and pulled out several music books and folders of sheet music to take to Adam. He shouldered Natasha's overnight bag, and she grabbed her coat before they headed through the portal together.

Natasha blinked in the sunshine for a moment as her eyes adjusted and the portal closed behind them. They were standing in the driveway in front of the lodge just as in the pictures. Adam was sitting on a bench having an animated discussion with the bald man who'd been in the background of one of the shots. Wong smiled at the arrivals and directed the younger man's attention toward Natasha. Adam broke into a grin as soon as he saw her. In a few steps he was across the drive and scooping her up in his arms and hugging her intensely as he spun them around before setting her back down on her feet. "Bozhe moi, Adam! Don't get too carried away," she said with a laugh.

"'Tasha, you're finally here. Are you feeling okay now? I'm sorry. I should have asked first." He was instantly contrite, but his excitement hadn't abated. His deep green eyes danced elatedly like Bruce's did, and he also rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet like a bird about to take flight or a half-trained puppy told to stay.

She placed her palms on both sides of his face, gently stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, and drew his head down so she could kiss his forehead. She was certain she smelled apples and sage as she ruffled her fingers through the curls on the top of his head before she let him go. "So, what have you been up to, Adam? I left you alone for less than 24 hours and you're courting someone from the far side of the galaxy."

"I had to go afield since you're already taken and Lila is too mature for me," he teased.

"Moy milyy rebenok, don't joke about that. I want you to be happy. Tell me what she's like."

"It's Nyxianna, but she prefers 'Anna. May I show you? I'm getting more nuanced with this, so it shouldn't overwhelm you like I did Bruce." She gave him a skeptical look with an arched eyebrow. He smiled as charming of a smile as he could, and she let him cup her cheek with his right hand and very lightly trace the profile of her nose down its bridge and hold for a moment as his memories gently seeped into her thoughts. It was as if she'd seen and listened to their conversation on the rock by the lake and then the fight between their alter egos. He waited to make certain he wasn't overloading her then he let her feel his emotions. She understood how he felt about this woman, and he showed her what he knew of 'Anna's story. He kept his hand in contact with Natasha's cheek, studying her face and trying to read her reaction. She wasn't sure if the connection went both ways, but she tried to show him she was happy for him, but she didn't hide her sadness and fears that part of him was gone. "It's all right. I'm not leaving, 'Tasha. I'm staying here for the time being."

She thought of the curly-haired child she'd held in her arms when he came into her dreams and the awkward teen she sat next to and watched make holographic diagrams out of thin air. She thought of their time operating together as part of the team and working through the lullaby and his therapy. "'Tasha, I had to grow up. I've avoided this for a long time—fought against it, but being an adult with a corporal body isn't bad. I've lost some flexibility, but it's going to make me a better partner and friend. It's going to give us all some stability and some new options." He dropped his hand from her face and took her hands in each of his as he stepped slightly back from her.

"Am I still going to have my partner at my back?" she asked.

"I'm still Hulk, so you've not lost your partner. When Bruce transitioned in his hotel room, I was mentally drawn inside just like always while my body went comatose here like someone whose spirit was on the Astral Plain. We're not even close to testing every possibility, but I'll be there when Bruce needs me. I promise I'll have your back, too."

She nodded, feeling a little reassured, but also bothered that he was being left unconscious and vulnerable, even if it was in his own realm. They needed to keep this as closed of a secret as possible. "I rather liked you as a munchkin."

"I did, too. I should be able to manage it on the astral plain, but I'm not going to attempt it with this body unless I have to. Besides, you're going to have your own munchkin before you know it," he said with a grin. "You really don't need me for that."

"No, but now you're going on the babysitting list," she teased.

"You say that like Bruce would trust me or anyone else without a résumé, background check, and CPR training," he joked back.

"You know, we are going to have to talk about getting you paperwork and setting up an identity," she said. "Are you planning on sticking with your name?"

"I'd like to keep it. It's kind of hard denying I'm related to Bruce."

"It would be easier to make you a cousin, but we'll talk about it. It's actually one of Clint's fortes," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "We have three weeks before they let you out of here, right?" He sighed and nodded. "I think we can have you some documentation by then."

"That would be awesome," he said brightening up. "I can have visitors who've been here before. I think we're going to make an exception for Tony and some others, so it won't be so bad. I've lived through much worse than boredom."

"I think Bruce brought you some piano music. Have you tried running a Starkpad from here?"

"With a portal open we could get coverage on the cellphones so Bruce could text, but I've not tried a pad yet."

"Open a portal into your room at the tower and you should be able to get coverage then. I'm not sure what Friday will make of it, so Bruce or I better inform her, but no one is likely to randomly stumble across it behind three sets of locked doors."

"My room?"

"The room where your shelf of books is, yes."

"It's really mine?"

"For as long as you want. Until you decide where you want to live. What did you think we were going to do? Put you in a cupboard under a staircase?"

"Well, no, but maybe someone would object."

"Who? Tony or Pepper? I don't think there will be a problem. Besides, Bruce and I own most of the floor between his lab and the apartment. We can look into making you your own space if that's what you'd like."

For once, Adam was speechless, so he just nodded. Then he hugged her. "Thank you," he finally whispered, obviously very moved.

"Adam, it's the least we can do. You may decide you want to live someplace else after you've been around Tony for a while."

"I doubt that." He carefully stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head before he let her go and stepped back. "I want to keep talking to you, 'Tasha, but you and Bruce are going to be late for your dinner reservation. Let me introduce you to Master Wong before you leave."

Bruce, Stephen, and Wong were trying to wind up their current discussion of possible diagnostics and training. Natasha noticed Bruce had settled down and was standing solidly on both feet as he spoke. "I think it's time to include Tony Stark in this conversation. He knows Adam, and he can help with some of the equipment we're going to need," Bruce concluded.

Stephen looked at Wong who nodded his head in agreement. "All right, Bruce, talk to Stark and see what he can come up with. We're fairly certain you and Adam both will be fine in reality at the same time, but there are still so many other unanswered questions about how Adam does things. I was able to charge my cell phone in the lodge for Ashanti's sake."

"I'm sure Tony will have some ideas, whether or not we'll find answers is something else altogether," Bruce replied soberly.

"You mean the answer's not, 'Magic!'?" she asked. "Because I guarantee the alternative is 'It's the Gamma'."

"Those are the what, but we'd like to know the how," Bruce said as he turned to her and slipped his arm around her waist.

"I'm sure Tony will have something to say. Are you going to drop this on him over dinner or are you going to be able to wait till after his presentation?" she posed.

"I hadn't made up my mind yet, so I'm open to suggestions. Natasha, I'd like you to meet Master Wong of the Kamar-Taj. Master Wong, this is my fiancée Natasha Romanoff."

"A pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Romanoff," the mystic said with a nod of his head. "You have helped to keep several of our students busy decoding SHIELD and HYDRA documents over the past few years. It has proven an invaluable aid in recovering stolen and lost artifacts. Let me offer my thanks for helping to keep them out of dangerous hands," he said as he firmly shook her own hand.

"The pleasure was all mine," she replied. Now, she understood why Strange had thanked her earlier, and for once it was a pleasant surprise. "Thank you for working with Adam, both of you. It's not going to be easy, but I think you'll agree it's worthwhile."

"Enough with the chitchat," Adam interrupted. "You have reservations at the Paradise in ten minutes, and both of you still have lipstick in odd spots. If it's okay, I'll open the portal to Bruce's hotel room."

"Go right ahead," said Strange. "The more practice you have, the better."

Adam smiled and planted his feet solidly before reaching out his left hand with the sling ring in place. He then held out his right and made the circular counter rotation. There was an orange glow and very quickly the sparks ignited and widened to become an eight-foot wheel that stabilized and continued to rotate. Beyond the portal was Bruce's hotel suit.

A thought occurred to Natasha, and she turned to Bruce who was carrying her overnight bag and opened up a side pocket. She pulled out her spare phone that she usually took on missions and handed it to Adam. "This is my mission phone, so be responsible with it. You can call Bruce or me, but don't bother anyone else unless it's an emergency. I don't care if you play the games, but you won't be able to download any apps. Do you think you can behave?"

He smiled and nodded eagerly, "Is there a password?"

"L-U-V-H-U-L-K-2," she said under her breath.

Adam pursed his lips but couldn't keep from chuckling with delight. "Aw, Mom, I knew you loved me," he teased.

"Kayla's number is in there. Tell her if you want to order pizza, and she'll do it and have it delivered to the room. Strange can step out and get it," Bruce said.

"Gee, Dad. Can I have the keys to the car, too?" Adam joked.

"No. But I will be the one teaching you to drive since everyone we know besides Steve and Hap drive like maniacs," Bruce retorted.

"Hey!" objected Natasha.

"Come on," Bruce said. "I think Tony is knocking at the door." With that they waved good-by to Strange and Wong.

"It was nice to meet you both," Natasha called. Bruce and she squeezed Adam's hands as he offered them, and then the couple stepped through the portal.

"Wake up, Bruce. I'm going to count to three before I get the master key card from Kayla," said Tony from the outside of the suite door.

"Patience," Bruce called. He set Natasha's bag down on the bed and hurriedly stepped over to the suite's door and opened it.

Tony was waiting there, looking perturbed with his arms crossed over a sharp new suit in dark navy blue. He stepped in and began, "What the hell is going . . . Oh, holy . . ." before he caught sight of the closing portal. "Bruce, didn't we agree to tell each other if we worked out time travel?"

"No, that's Sheldon and Leonard on The Big Bang Theory. Anyway, it's not time travel. It's more like teleportation," Bruce said.

"Kind of like a wormhole," Natasha deadpanned, and Tony came close to doing a full double take when it registered she was in the room.

"Natasha! Pepper said you'd left a message that you were going out for the evening, but this is way, way out," Tony said.

"Don't worry, we'll explain over dinner," Bruce reassured him. "It's a good thing the restaurant is just downstairs on the second floor."

"All right, fine. Just go clean the lipstick off your ear first, Bruce. That part about how that got there you don't have to tell me about it."

End Notes: Yea! The grades are in!

Hope everyone that was concerned about Bruce and Natasha not getting time together in the present will have some happiness now. There's plenty more to come! (See, there were reasons for the last three chapters besides me liking magic.) Next chapter, dinner and a presentation, and who is that mysterious redhead?

Please tell me what you think! Feedback always helps, especially when I'm working out the details.


	57. Chapter 57

**Chapter 57: Nat Does 'Natti or It's All Relative**

 **Summary:** Bruce, Nat, and Tony have dinner. We find out how Adam and Raven's Big Adventure ended as Adam revisits the Gamma and gets some answers. Tony's awesome presentation goes over well. Adam messes up and faces the consequences. We find out that Negan guy has nothing on Pepper. If the Hummer is rockin' . . .

 **Notes:** My eternal thanks to Autumn_Froste for her beta duties! Sorry to take so long on the update. This is a big chapter that continues the present timeline with Natasha, Bruce, and Tony in Cincinnati while Adam visits the Gamma and in flashback resolves the Adam and Raven subplot from Chapters 42-43. Sorry, I had to get a political dig in there. Enjoy!

"No shit, a wormhole!" Tony was shaking his head as they stepped into the elevator.

"You might want to wait till we get to a more 'secure' spot before we get into a discussion, Tony," Natasha pointed out as she nodded her head toward the back corner of the elevator and the security camera near its ceiling.

Tony pulled his "pen of silence" out of his breast pocket with a flourish and handed it to Natasha. She raised an eyebrow and Tony grinned encouragingly. "Go ahead and turn it on."

"I better not regret this," she said, looking at Bruce who'd pressed the button for the second floor restaurant and slipped his arm around Natasha's shoulders.

He snorted and shook his head, "It's fine. Tony nailed it this time. What's your guess?"

Natasha studied the metal object and quickly deduced how to turn it on and engaged it with a gentle twist. She could detect a slight hum and a very high-pitched sound that modulated out of her range of hearing. "Distortion field?" she asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Very good, Ms. Romanoff, you have not lost your touch!" Tony said with delight.

"Both audio and visual?"

"You got it. Just don't block the signal," he warned.

"Range?" she asked.

"Roughly three to ten feet," Tony replied. "Enough to cover the average table of four in an average space or two in an intimate one."

"Watch it or you'll convince me to pocket this," she said with a sly smile.

"Keep that one. I brought a dozen with me," he said. "Just don't lose it."

At the floor two below theirs, the elevator stopped and all three of them held their breath as the door opened. This wasn't supposed to happen since this was a private elevator to the upper floors. A corpulent man in a pinstriped suit looked down his lumpy, spray-tanned nose at them. He was flanked by goonish bodyguards with slicked back hair and dark glasses they obviously didn't need indoors. The three men scowled as if they expected the trio in the elevator to leave or surrender the elevator to them.

"Headed down?" Bruce asked to break the tension. "Plenty of room."

"I think not," said the large man haughtily. Then his gaze settled on Natasha and his lip curled upward in a lewd sneer that went up and down her figure. She returned his inappropriate looks with a much deadlier glare of her own.

Bruce leaned in front of Natasha and pushed the door's closure button. "Suit yourself," he said neutrally. However, he made sure the lout saw his eyes glow as he straightened up. The man's lecherous sneer quickly changed to one of shock and then anger. His nearest handler grabbed the old man's shoulder and pulled him back, knocking his carroty-dyed hair askew as the door closed.

Tony was the first to break the silence. "Did that puffy cheese curd look familiar?"

"Duh, I'm surprised to see him slumming it outside of one of his own establishments," Natasha remarked.

"He's probably a little pissy about not getting the Presidential Suite," Tony suggested with a snort.

"I don't care who he is. There's no excuse for behavior like that," Bruce said, still tamping down his temper.

Natasha squeezed his hand. "It looked to me like his handler got the message. Don't let it bother you. Besides, I'd have broken something if anyone had made a stupid move."

"I know. It's just irritating," Bruce groused. Clearly, when they were out in public, he was going to have to get used to some of this or he would get baited and manipulated by every douchebag who acted out.

"Well, expect to get attacked on social media when the nursemaids get him up to pee at 3:00am," Tony noted dryly. Bruce and Natasha both turned to look at him. "What? That's literally and figuratively when he takes a dump on everyone." The couple both rolled their eyes at that.

"If you don't mind, let's change the subject," Natasha suggested.

The elevator finally arrived at the right floor and the sound of piano music greeted them as they stepped out into the foyer. The maitre d' quickly showed them to a table behind a partitioned area, which was at least semi-private, but still gave them a good view of the beautifully lit plaza through the tall windows and the young woman playing piano.

Bruce held out Natasha's chair for her and they all sat down to enjoy the music and non-alcoholic cocktails. Natasha set the distortion device in the middle of the table and turned it on. It somewhat muffled the piano music, but that was a small price to pay for privacy.

"Where were we? Oh, yes, wormholes," Tony began. "Somebody catch me up on this!"

Bruce looked at Natasha and she made a grand gesture with her hand to go ahead since he knew much more firsthand than she did. "Well, do you want the down-and-dirty version or the details?" he asked.

"Somewhere in between would be nice."

"Okay, you already know the basics about Stephen Strange. He's the Sorcerer Supreme, and he's taken an interest in helping Adam and me."

"Right, since last May when he helped both of you when you went on walkabout."

Natasha had pulled up the first picture Bruce had texted her and slid her phone across the table to Tony. He looked at the picture of Strange and Adam, then looked up at Bruce and back to the picture. It was easy to see he'd recognized this wasn't Bruce in the picture. With a rather shocked look, Tony set the phone on the table and brought his hands up to press against his mouth for a moment while he rearranged his newly expanded understanding of reality.

"Are you okay?" Natasha asked.

"Yah," he said huskily. "So I'm guessing this is Adam in the picture, right?"

Bruce nodded, "Right. That's Adam in an actual flesh and blood body, presumably of his own making, and he and Strange are standing in a room I thought only existed in my head."

Tony nodded and looked at the picture again. "Okay, go on," he said. "This ought to be good."

Bruce shot an uneasy look at Natasha and continued. "Well, Strange and I both recognized Adam has some natural talent when it comes to magic, but we didn't fully appreciate how much until today when we found out what I thought was happening in my head had been happening in a dimension he's made. I know it sounds crazy, but he's built his own reality and with that has come a physical body that exists there, but we're pretty certain it can exist in ours as well." Bruce thought he might be overloading Tony for once. "Do you follow me so far?"

Tony shook his head. "As long as you aren't shitting me, Bruce, yes. I think I'm keeping up."

"No, no messing around. We spent most of this afternoon testing how this affects us manifesting into Hulk. If you scroll down, there are pictures documenting it. You're being very quiet, Tony. You're not upset are you?"

"Oh, God, no." Tony shook his head and gave them a doleful smile. "I'm just trying to get a handle on all this. I didn't need to be there for you to practice Hulking out, but it looks like you had a good time doing it." Tony grinned at a couple of the pictures. "This last one with the mirrors is in the hotel room, right?"

"Yes."

"The others look like you're up at the lodge, but they can't be because it's snowed in."

"Those were taken in Adam's dimension. He's built replicas of several places he likes," Bruce explained.

"Okay. Practical question: How did you send the texts?" the engineer asked.

"Adam or Strange made a portal to someplace with good reception. I'm guessing it was Strange's house in Greenwich Village," Bruce said. "The portal itself doesn't cause any interference, so you just stick your arm through and viola."

"Adam can make the portals?"

"Yes, he seems to be a natural at it. He opened the one that brought Natasha here." Natasha nodded her agreement. "Strange and Master Wong are working with him . . . finally, on the basics, so he knows how to take precautions and do things safely," Bruce explained.

The engineer took a drink from his glass and set it down. "Among other things, it seems like the days of needing a quinjet for transportation are numbered," Tony mused.

Natasha shook her head, "Not yet, but there is a lot of potential here."

"That is perhaps the most massive understatement I've ever heard, Natasha," Tony said as he scrubbed his face with his hands. "This could entirely change the game."

Bruce snorted. "As I understand it, the portals are pretty basic magic. The real mystery is the dimension itself and Adam's corporal form. Neither Strange nor I are sure how Adam created any of it. Adam thinks he just got off track when he started to rebuild his environment back in May, but creating something like this is a long, long way to go off track. I'm sure he's used the Gamma in some way, but the amount of mass and fine-tuned design and manipulation down to the atomic level . . . my God, Tony!"

The engineer played with the now empty highball glass in his hands. "What kinds of tests have you three done so far?"

"Strange said he was able to manifest a type of smaller dimension inside it, which wouldn't have been possible if Adam's wasn't a true dimension." Bruce scratched the back of his head. "Strange also took some samples—a rock and a lilac sprig Adam had made—and used a time spell on them in his sanctum. The rock stayed stable while the plant rooted and grew like a normal plant. They seem to be very much in line with matter and plant life here."

"But you've not brought Adam himself over?" Tony noted.

"No, not physically. We thought it best to wait and see how he does now that he's been exposed to our reality. I don't think there will be a problem. I'm guessing his immune system is something like mine, so it should be fairly robust. We want him to stay put for a month just to be safe."

"So, you, Nat, Strange, and Wong are the only ones he's been exposed to so far?"

Natasha looked pointedly at Bruce who looked uncomfortably at the glass in his hands before he looked at her. "Well, funny you should ask that. There was one other. Bare with me, after we returned from helping with the bridge, Adam retired to his realm and, as you know, I gave him plenty of space. Adam occasionally visits with an envoy from Asgard who checks in with him from time to time."

"Please don't say it's Loki," Tony moaned.

"No, it's probably Odin's representative, but anyway, Adam was near what he thought was the edge to his realm in my imagination, and he threw a rock over the edge out of frustration, hoping Strange would show up. The rock apparently crossed dimensions and struck someone who then showed up to confront him. However, she became much more interested in him than quarreling."

Tony held up a hand, "Whoa, hold it a moment! Adam tossed a rock from his dimension, and it traveled across other dimensions and hit someone?"

"Well, yes. That's what tipped off Strange and me to suspect something much bigger had happened."

Natasha cleared her throat, "That's not all of it."

"Right," said Tony, "you said 'she', didn't you? Just who was she and how pissed was she and what happened?"

"Well, it's okay now. He apologized and she's really not mad about it."

Natasha finally gave up on Bruce providing any details. "What Bruce is not saying is her name is Nyxianna, she's scary and gorgeous, she rules a planet, and well . . ."

"Don't," said Bruce shaking his head.

"Really?" Tony asked Natasha with an arched eyebrow.

"They really did hit it off, and that's probably as much as we need to know," she concluded.

Tony nodded, "You're probably right. So, Nyxianna Warrior Princess and Hulk, huh?"

"Well, 'Anna and Adam," she said. "It's actually very charming. Don't give him a difficult time over it."

"If you want to know more, you'll have to ask Adam," Bruce said, still feeling rather torn between what needed to be shared versus what was his brother's business and ought to be kept private. It didn't help that he was still sorting out an unedited set of memories Adam had dumped in his head. Turn about was probably fair play since Adam had been witness to more of Bruce's experiences than he'd wanted to be over the years. "Sorry, I'm not sure where to draw the line at what's appropriate to discuss."

Natasha patted his knee under the table. "Fair enough, but I think we both know how taken he is with her."

"I know. It's just a big adjustment when I'm used to him being child-like and mostly uninterested," Bruce explained.

"You may not have realized it, Bruce, but he's been repressing and fighting his feelings at least since I've known him," Natasha said. "If it weren't for having to deal with an actual adult body, he might have continued to avoid it. He seems pretty happy that he's synced up with his physical age now though."

Bruce took her hand in his and gave it a small squeeze as he finally smiled at her. She was right. He seemed to be more upset about this than Adam was. Unfortunately, he couldn't shake the feeling that things were going too fast and something was being lost in the process.

"So, when do I get to go see all this firsthand?" Tony asked.

Bruce chewed his lower lip. "It might be a good idea to let Adam rest up tonight. Tomorrow morning, okay? He's planning on taking Natasha back through a portal before 8:00am for a doctor's appointment, so we could go then if there's nothing on the itinerary here."

"I can't think of anything until noon."

"Good, that should give us a nice block of time."

((o))

Adam had worked with Stephen and Master Wong on basic forms for almost an hour before they took their leave and left him with a list of exercises to practice and a promise to check back in with him before long. It didn't occur to him he was hungry until after they'd left, so he pondered if he should try using Natasha's phone and contacting Kayla or not. Then it struck him he could just imagine something he liked and it would be there. That presented its own problems since he only had a vague menu of tastes through Bruce to draw on. He finally ended up with apples, celery, peanut butter, club crackers, and ginger ale. He very carefully used a small kitchen knife to slice the apple and celery up like he remembered their mother doing. He made piles of the ingredients on a plate and sat down at the kitchen table before he tried the peanut butter on everything. Adam decided it was pretty good, so maybe he'd be ready before too long to try something that required actual cooking. If he could cut things up and make coffee and tea, surely someone could show him how to cook, right?

After he'd cleaned up and put the utensils away, Adam took a walk and ended up near the Lake Erie Shore. This was where parts of his endeavor had started months ago when he and Raven had ventured off into OZ to find the Gamma on the same day in mid July that Natasha had brought Bruce back from the safe house in England. Adam half wished Raven was there to talk to, but immediately thought better of it. He knew it wasn't the right time to contact 'Anna yet either, so he didn't touch the stone in his left pocket. Instead, he reached into the right and pulled out the sling ring. The first time he'd visited the Gamma, he and Raven had taken a circuitous route, but now he knew the location of his first adventure's end. Today, all he needed to do was open a portal if he wanted to go there. The question was, did he want to visit or not? The last time he had paid a price and made a tradeoff that had given him and apparently the other what they both wanted. He knew he should leave well enough alone, but Adam found himself wanting to check in and see how it was doing. Something had to have changed over the past few months. He'd hoped it was for the better, but he couldn't be sure without seeing firsthand. The Gamma might not be talkative, but today, between he and Bruce, they'd gotten it as worn down and relieved of its painful burden as he could remember. Maybe it would be less on the savage end of its spectrum and more on the approachable end now? Well, that decided it. He'd go visit "the Wizard" again.

Adam moved away from the water and up the bank to a grassy field above the lakeshore with plenty of room. He pictured a similar field at the base of a rocky outcrop below a granite mountain. In deference to Strange, he kept the sling ring on as he reached out and gathered air and pulled fire from inside. He was a little surprised when he rotated his right hand that the first sparks were greenish before they turned orange and gold, but otherwise he felt confident he'd done everything correctly before he put through the final connection to the Bone Mountain. He kept his focus tight and shaped the portal to a modest six feet in diameter. As he stepped through from one type of grassland to another, he felt a chill in the twilight air, but he didn't turn back. Instead, he pulled lightly on the radiation in his bones to warm himself and walked up the grassy slope to the cave's entrance. It must have been overcast because he didn't see any stars in the darkening night sky. The last time he'd been here, he'd said good-bye to Raven at the edge of the grassland since his companion was merely an observer while they ventured along the edge of the Astral Plane. Now he knew Raven couldn't come into his realm without permission, and he was pretty glad now to have kept his visit with the Gamma private.

Adam took one last look around before he entered the cave. Nothing had changed from his last visit except the earthy large animal smell had lessened and there was no discernable heat in this first upper chamber. Adam followed the cave's sandy floor as it slanted downward and the passage narrowed and the rough natural walls began to smooth out. There was a slight ambient green glow at the back of the cave that became more apparent as the floor turned into steps and he touched the wall to keep his balance. The rock itself was warm like he remembered it was before. The glow came from clumps of lichens that grew thicker the further down he went. The air was warmer here and some of the musky smell remained and kept growing as he continued down the twisting and turning stairs. As he continued the long descent, Adam thought back to his first trip down the stone steps into Bone Mountain.

((o))

After what seemed like a long time descending deeper into the mountain on that initial visit, the passageway began to widen, and Adam could see a brighter light around the next turn when the inner chamber opened up into its full glory. It was a dry cave now except for a small spring, but at some point there had been water to carry the dissolved stone from above and deposit it into formations of stalactites and stalagmites that in many places made columns where they met. Some of these columns made bars across the middle of the ballroom-sized chamber. The only water left was the spring that collected into a basin along the far end on the other side of the columns, but he didn't notice this until later because he was completely focused on the gray-green firedrake curled up in a corner of this huge rock and cold iron cage as if it had been patiently waiting for him.

The enormous muscular beast inhaled his scent and eyed Adam as he stood there in the archway at the chamber's entrance marveling at the captive creature's physical presence. The lichen around the walls lit the place up more evenly than torches, but as the dragon sat up, it glowed bright green from its chest down to its belly. When his eyes grew accustomed to it, Adam could see the creature's heart beating and other internal organs illuminated by the radiation. "He doesn't smell like Robert Bruce Banner, but he certainly looks like him," the dragon mused aloud to itself in a rough, unused bass voice. It tilted its horned head and continued to study him with its cat-like, hazel-gold eyes, "I am the Keeper of the Gamma. Who are you and why are you here in my humble cell?"

"I'm not Bruce, but we are related. My name is Adam and I've come seeking answers," he said earnestly.

The dragon laughed its deep rumble that ended with a wheeze. "I've met you, but it's been a long time. I suppose you want me to give you a riddle or a task or something, but that's a lot of trouble to go through even if it gave you a good story in the end." It rose up on its four legs and paced back and forth as far as the chains and bars would allow. "I don't get hungry, so I don't plan on eating you unless you're really annoying. Tell me what you want, and I'll help if I'm inclined. If my services are worth a payment, I'll ask for it at the end. Square enough, Adam, brother of Bruce?"

"Square enough," he agreed. This wasn't at all what Adam had pictured or expected. His memories were of a vicious green monster lashing out at everything. This one seemed downright reasonable, which meant he was really going to have to watch it, especially since it knew more about him than he knew about it. "All right, Keeper, I'm trying to find out the extent of Bruce's injuries and see if he has physically healed or not. If he hasn't, I need to find a way to do it. I need to know how the Gamma works now."

The dragon smiled as ruefully as a huge reptile might and chuckled. "I'm not a biologist, but I do live here," the Keeper said, sitting back on its hind legs and curling its tail around itself. "Over time, things have changed, gotten more efficient, less wasteful and messy when it comes to energy and radiation. There are still some overheating issues from time to time, but those are leveling out. His system has been rebuilt to a certain extent, so there is a certain amount of trial and error."

"Do you have all the radiation sequestered here with you now?"

"Yes, most of it is either in my body or here in these bone caves when there is an incident," it said looking over its shoulder at the dark cavernous space behind it. "The whole place can get hotter and messier when it's time for the monster or when you transition, but the Gamma all comes back to me when it's normal here. I like predictability, but it's always touch and go with elements this volatile. You've caught me at an unusually quiet time or I'd be trying to take your head off."

Adam nodded. So far this was good news, except for the part about normally wanting to take off his head. "Are you able to predict your 'mood swings', so I'll know when to leave?"

"You'll have enough time to get to safety. If I start to glow, you need to go. It's that simple," the Keeper explained with a toothy smile.

"Can you tell if Bruce's biological functions are all uh, . . . functioning?"

The Keeper looked a bit puzzled. "Bruce seems physically well off. He eats, drinks, and eliminates waste just fine if that's what you mean. Wait," the keeper looked at Adam slyly, "you're meaning something else." The creature rumbled out a laugh as Adam looked slightly uncomfortable. "You're talking about reproduction. That's a bit trickier. The sex part you should already know is quite satisfactory. The problem is the radiation did damage the more delicate structures that actually make the sperm cells. As much as things have been repaired or even improved, there wasn't much to work with there. I'm afraid he's still sterile."

Adam sighed. It had been a long shot, but he'd been hopeful.

The dragon moved its horned head closer to him and sniffed Adam through the bars. "Why are you asking me these questions when you already knew most of the answers to them?"

"I don't know," Adam admitted. "I guess I was hoping you were, or you used to be, someone who could help."

"Adam, I'm no one of any importance. I don't even have a name, just a title, and that's only since you gave it to me," it said sympathetically.

"But I know you do something extremely important. I've put the greater part of my time into sequestering the Gama radiation, but you've been the one storing it and shaping what it does, taking something that's destructive and instead making it useful. I know you're the one who's done it. I couldn't manage half of what I make or do for Bruce without you holding up your end. Even if we've not directly communicated, I knew you were my silent partner here deep in the bones." Adam scuffed at the sandy floor with his shoe. "We were so close to doing this last thing. Even if just a few cells had survived that might have been enough for his body and the Gamma to heal him."

"You're very kind to say all this, Adam. It means a lot to me that you've recognized what I do, but I can't turn back time for Bruce." The Keeper scratched its chin with a clawed hand, and soon there was a glimmer in its bright eyes. "It's a pity younger people never think to bank samples of important 'parts' before they go off and do potentially dangerous things. Fertility is something they take for granted until it's damaged or gone. If someone knew how to retrieve or perhaps duplicate what's damaged . . ." the Keeper looked at Adam, expecting him to finish the thought on his own. The twin's mind immediately leapt to the soft spots and holes along the edge of his realm near the Astral Plane that he'd used earlier as shortcuts. Maybe there were others that led further back in time than the ones he'd found, maybe even before the accident?

The creature smiled as if he could read Adam's thoughts. Though it hurt, it pressed against the stone and cold iron bars and whispered, "A clever twin who is able to clone his brother's appearance . . ."

Adam finished the idea with the dragon, ". . . might be able to copy more, perhaps down to a cellular level." Adam's mind raced forward. This would be a much less intrusive way than convincing a younger Bruce to bank sperm deposits or trying to collect samples without his knowing about it. All Adam had to do was make enough of his body real for a short time. Adam paced and the Keeper paced with him on the other side of the bars, each mirroring the other's excitement. The temptation was also there to try and prevent the accident altogether, but he dismissed it as more meddling and unpredictable consequences than he was willing to take on. Adam finally stopped and looked at the Keeper, "Thank you! I think I can get this to work now. What would you like in return for your help?"

Others in his position might have longed for freedom and escape or even death, but having been without purpose for most of its existence, the Keeper had no desire to leave its post. However, there were certain things it had always longed for. "If you please, I would like a memory—just a copy of one you're willing to share—a day you've spent with Bruce from your childhood. It doesn't need to be anything special."

Adam couldn't think of any reason to object to that. He would have been stuck in a real quandary if the Keeper wanted to leave. He wasn't sure if any of them would have survived that. "All right. Just one with Bruce or would family be okay?"

"Family, yes, I would like that. Here, you'll need this," the Keeper searched the left-side wall for a niche and pulled out a clear crystal about six inches long and thicker around than Adam's thumb. The beast held the delicate thing carefully in its clawed hand and passed it to Adam through the bars. "Hold it and think about the day. Once you get it started, the crystal will help you along."

The crystal was lighter in his hand than quartz and it was warm. Adam picked one of their vacation days when he and Jennifer and Uncle Morris had gone fishing early in the misty morning. Bruce and Jenn were about six or seven; in retrospect, Morris Walters was a very brave man to take two first graders out in a boat by himself. They fished but it was the stories Bruce and Adam remembered about the fieldwork his uncle did as a zoologist and the scientific methodology that appealed to Bruce. By noon they were headed back to camp for sandwiches and swimming before the rest of the family arrived later that day. The girl cousins were eager to see Jennifer, and Rich brought his baseball cards to show Bruce. Later, there had been hotdogs cooked on coat hanger skewers over the fire and games of tag in the twilight as the fireflies came out. Bruce had been so excited and happy all day that Adam had vivid impressions of everything. They'd even seen their mother and father sit together as everyone gathered around the campfire. They looked so happy together that day. Dad stole a kiss and Mom had laughed as he whispered in her ear. Bruce must have fallen asleep after the singing because Adam couldn't remember going to bed in the cabin though he knew that was where Bruce woke up the following morning.

As the memory ended, Adam noted the crystal had picked up an iridescent sheen and held light and colors in its depths. It also weighed at least double its original heft. He felt a sense of loss that he couldn't explain wash over him, and tears welled up in his eyes. He remembered it all; sharing it had only made the memory more vivid. Nothing was missing, but now he could see it from an adult's perspective and know what was going to unfold. Adam carefully handed the crystal back to the Keeper.

"Thank you, Adam Banner. I will treasure this." The great beast held the crystal up and admired it for a moment before returning it to the safety of the niche. "I promise I'll take good care of it. Now, have you made your plans?"

"Plans and backup plans," Adam admitted. "I'm pretty certain I'll get one of them to work. Thank you."

"Be careful. Meddling with time is dangerous, and it will draw unwanted attention to you. Get in and get out quickly without being detected."

Adam nodded solemnly.

"Good. Now, I need you to promise me not to come visiting here as a habit. You lucked out and caught me in a positive phase, which is a rarity. Most of the time I'm very unpleasant to be around once the Gamma has built up like it's beginning to now." Adam could see the energy building in the creature's chest and flowing out into its increasingly greener limbs. He started to argue, but the Keeper cut him off. "It's better that you don't come back. Go! Now!" it growled.

Reluctantly, Adam had retreated back up the stone steps. He could feel the temperature rising. This might be what preceded a blast of fire or a radiation spike, so Adam didn't slow down as he climbed until he neared the surface. He could hear the bellowing screams below following him most of the way up.

It took almost a month for Adam to formulate a plan and put the information to use. It hadn't gone completely smoothly, but he'd achieved the results he wanted. Since then, he'd respected the Keeper's wishes and stayed away till now.

((o))

Adam thought the Keeper's warning over as he continued downward to the spot where the passage widened just before the chamber. He paused before stepping around the final curve of the stairs and into the cave. He breathed deeply and calmed his heart. It took him a moment to notice it, but he could only hear his own breathing and the occasional echoing drip. Dragons were never this quiet unless . . . Almost in a panic, he quickly stepped around the end of the rock wall and into the chamber, expecting to see a magnificent green dragon full of anger and trapped behind the rock columns reinforced with cold iron bars and chains with links to rival Prometheus' bonds. Yet, there was nothing there. He stopped in his tracks and searched the room wildly, half imagining the monster to be hanging bat-like from the ceiling and ready to pounce. Nothing. He reached out with his senses and slowly approached the cell. There was enough space between the cold iron and rock columns for him to slip through into the cage, and he didn't hesitate to do it. The lichen clumps grew thick along the walls, so Adam saw the figure at the back of the space near the spring's basin. It was humanoid and pale with a grayish cast from the dirt and the scars covering its naked body. Its back was to him, but it was breathing and Adam said a silent prayer of thanks. Adam waved his right hand in a flourish-like motion and pulled a soft plush blanket out of the air. He knelt and gently settled the cover over the body.

"Don't touch me, Adam. You won't like the consequences if our skins meet," it said in a dry voice like wind through dead grass. "Told you not to come back. I'm not predictable."

"I know. But you knew eventually I would, Keeper of the Gamma." He firmly grasped the being's shoulders and turned the body over as carefully as he could. As Adam knelt beside the being, it curled its spine tighter and shuddered, wrapping its arms around its drawn up legs, trying to be as small and protected as it could, but it was weak with exhaustion.

"Leave me alone. I'm not fit to look at in this state," it rasped. "I just need to rest."

"Let me see you. I might be able to heal what's wrong. I want to help." The being gave up and let Adam lay him on his back. The face was human, but the skin was smooth with scar tissue from having been burned and injured and healed many times over. He thought of the dragon pressing its face to the cold iron bars and the consequence. The eyes were a pale hazel-brown, almost golden, and the irises were round and human rather than the reptilian slits Adam remembered. His dark eyebrows had started to grown back and the hair on his head was a silvery gray stubble. This told Adam he'd not been in this state of Gamma remission for a long time. Adam felt a bit guilty about this, but Bruce's confinement to the tower limited the amount of Gamma that could be burned off via physical activity as Hulk. Adam used the Gamma in several ways from building constructs to metabolic energy, but it took both of them to deplete its effects on the Keeper to this degree. As Adam continued to study the scared face, he knew that if the Keeper were able to smile, he'd recognize the same expression he saw in the mirror. Now that he was here with him, he was going to get some answers to questions he hadn't been able to ask during his initial visit.

The Keeper struggled to sit up and the blanket fell away to reveal the glowing green mass within his chest that gave him his title. The Gamma shown down through his torso where his heart and lungs and internal organs were. Adam didn't need to ask because this was obviously where the Gamma had fused with his form and was now trapped and sequestered there. It kept everyone else safe from its harmful radiation and its energy potential under control. The Keeper was like a living battery or generator or power plant that at times became a warhead. What Adam was seeing was on some level symbolic because it was his mind making sense of both the abstract concepts and the real situation. However, it didn't make what he was seeing less unsettling. A dragon's formidable body had seemed an appropriate vessel for the nearly endless power of the Gamma, but not this frail human form. Without touching his skin directly, Adam helped the Keeper settle into a more comfortable sitting position. "Are you in pain?" Adam asked. "I mean, more than normal."

The being rolled back his head and wheezed several times. Adam realized this was what passed for laughter. After a few moments, the hazel-brown eyes focused on him again. "On a scale from zero to ten with zero being 'no pain' to ten being 'knock me unconscious' to 100 being what I live with every day, I'd say I'm at an eight, Adam," he rasped in a voice that reminded Adam of what John Hurt's Mr. Olivander might sound like if he were American.

"Really, I was going to guess eleven," Adam said dryly. "Why shouldn't I touch your skin?"

"What has happened before when you touched your brother?" the Keeper posited.

"I copied him," Adam answered.

"You wouldn't want to be like me, Adam, even for a few minutes," the Keeper warned. "You may have forgotten it, but the one time we did embrace at the very beginning of this partnership of necessity, I thought we would all kill each other."

"You can remember that?" Adam asked in surprise. His memory of the accident was in fragments, none of it in the least bit pleasant. Of course his memories were from the inside while the Keeper's would have started from the outside.

The hazel-brown eyes settled on Adam, and the Keeper weighed his words carefully. "I can remember certain periods in my life fairly well and some hardly at all, but being caught and pulled into this existence I won't forget."

"I remember protecting Bruce, but he didn't understand what I was doing," Adam said, not hiding the sadness he felt. "I held his cells together, but he rejected me because he thought I was the cause of the pain. For years he didn't recognize me, but we finally managed to reconnect and things are better now, even better than when I last saw you."

"I'm glad you and Bruce are doing better," the Keeper responded, scratching at the short silvery hair that was growing back on his scalp.

Adam took a deep breath; now was as good a time as any to ask. "I've always been on the 'inside', so it makes sense I was pulled into this. You were from the outside. Why do you think you were forced into hosting the Gamma?"

"That's a long story, Adam, and not a pleasant one."

"But it's one I want to hear," he coaxed.

The Keeper pulled the blanket up around his shoulders and wrapped his arms around his middle. "Very well. You have the right to know. Now that you've seen my human form, I'm sure you can detect the family resemblance under all the mess."

Adam nodded, holding his breath.

"You and I share more in common than most uncles and nephews do. You probably understand our condition and circumstances and know more theories and terms for it than I do, but I'll tell you what I know. You won't find it in any official birth records, but twins run on the Banner side of your family. Just as you are Bruce's twin, I was your father Brian's 'twin'. Unfortunately, that came with all the complications you've probably experienced and maybe more since neither of us survived in the normal way to be born separate beings. While your father lived, I resided in him much like you do Bruce. Banners tend to come in one of two molds: destroyers or protectors."

"Bruce divides it into smashers and builders," Adam added with a small smile.

"That's fairly similar. Tell me if I'm guessing correctly from the memory you shared with me. It seems like you and Bruce haven't minded sharing an existence," the older man said almost wistfully.

"Some times it's not so easy, but up until the accident and since he's remembered me, we've worked together very peaceably," Adam noted.

The Keeper cackled humorlessly, "'Peaceable' is the last term I'd use to describe my existence with your father. Some children don't share their toys, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that some people will fight even harder for something as personal as a mind or a body. Some would rather destroy part of themselves than admit they hear voices or sense the presence of others. He saw me as a defect." The Keeper shifted and stared at his bare feet. "I did my best to stay quiet and not bother Brian. He didn't want my company or my help, but it's very difficult to avoid thinking or reacting, even if you're the silent partner. Your father was intellectually brilliant, but his ego and ambition were even bigger. His downfall was a total disinterest in getting along with others, especially if they were critical of him or he saw them as competition."

Adam had pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, mirroring his uncle's body language. "After the accident, when Bruce didn't recognize me, he kept me sequestered in a space similar to this, but much smaller, unless I was the Hulk."

"Brian never succeeded in sequestering or blocking me, but all I was to him was an annoyance with the exception of when our father beat him. That's when he would let me have control of everything. When we were fifteen, I'd had enough and fought back. The bastard never bothered us or your aunts again. Later, when Brian started showing signs of paranoia and schizophrenia, I couldn't help him. Everything I tried made him worse. He kept drinking and then went from verbally abusing your mother and brother to physical abuse. Any time I tried to intercede seemed to take him over the edge faster. I'm sorry I was so impotent to help."

"I'm sure you did what you could, Uncle. He chose his path. There was nothing anyone could have done."

The Keeper shook his head, "I hid and when I had the chance to separate, I fled. I don't have a good excuse."

"You escaped! You survived. It's a miracle you managed that," Adam assured him.

"I'm not certain how I did. I tried to tear myself away from him for years, but in the mental hospital, after he had killed Rebecca, I fought Brian to make sure he couldn't leave. That's the only thing I could do that was right. He thought he was being clever. I had to keep him there by acting out during evaluations and making him take his meds. If I was trapped with him, at least I could do this for Bruce and Susan even if it was too late for your mother. I didn't know about you then, but I wanted to keep all of you safe from him. I'm so, so sorry, Adam. I failed you all." The tears that spilled over made tracks through the grime on his cheeks.

Adam leaned forward and used a corner of the blanket to wipe the tears from his uncle's face. "You didn't fail us. He never got out. He died there, but you didn't. You survived him."

"It wasn't till he died that I was finally free. I should have moved on, but I wanted to know what had happened to Bruce before I let go. I stayed near him when I saw the influence that bully Ross was having over him. I wanted to make sure Bruce wasn't slipping into the same negative patterns as your father. I saw Ross tamper with the equipment to up the generator's output, but I couldn't stop him. I tried to warn Bruce, but I couldn't get through. I tried to absorb the radiation by pulling it into me, but then I was drawn into you and Bruce when you put his cells back together. Pain. I remember lots of pain. I failed you both again. I don't remember much more for a long time."

"You didn't fail. Bruce didn't die. We held him together. We might not have known what we were doing, but it worked out. Since I last saw you, I can control my form now, and everything we talked about before—your ideas, my theories—they worked!" The scarred man looked at Adam questioningly. "Let me show you." Before his uncle could object, Adam laid his right hand on the older man's forehead and gently opened up his memories. Adam had found a "short cut", another hole near the Astral Plane or soft spot that led back about 15 years. Bruce had been finishing graduate school, and Betty had finally gotten him to come out of his repressed shell. They were sleeping with limbs tangled together in Bruce's bed in his apartment. Adam had pulled on the Gamma and used his connection to his stem cells similar to what happened during the transformation to make himself tangible and solid. Oh, it had hurt! Every breath, every heartbeat overwhelmed him and threatened to smother him in sensations he'd never felt with this intensity before. He made himself stand and step through the portal into the quiet bedroom. The two lovers blissfully wrapped in each other's arms were so innocent and in many ways doomed, but he couldn't change that. It was going to be awful, but they both would survive and heal and find their measures of happiness. He wished he had the time to just stand there and watch them a few minutes more, but the longer he was out of his own time, the more he courted disaster or discovery.

Bruce's back was to him, so Adam gently placed his hand on his brother's bare shoulder. He immediately sensed not just Bruce, but himself drifting and dreaming together in that state of early harmony they'd shared. In a heartbeat, he felt his body absorbing the patterns and information needed to copy Bruce's younger, undamaged body. It felt just as overwhelming as before, but the physical pain had dropped to a mild discomfort. He wasn't surprised to sense himself stirring, so he sent a soothing message never to lose hope and to trust his faith in his brother.

Adam sensed he had what he needed and stepped back, slipping through the soft spot and forward into his present. He concentrated on holding Bruce's form and then sought him out. He'd hoped to wait until Bruce was asleep so he could explain what was happening and let the healing happen at its own pace. Timing, however, wasn't cooperating. He found Bruce climaxing with Natasha and tried to back off. If he could just give them a few minutes, maybe he could stick with the plan. Unfortunately, once the process was underway, his control over it began to slip as the cells recognized their natural place and rushed to leave him and join Bruce. That was when Bruce had overheated and convulsed in Natasha's arms. From Adam's perspective on the inside, it reminded him of seeing Tony drop through the closing portal above New York and fall lifelessly from the sky. The normal laws of physics didn't apply inside, so the landing wouldn't damage Bruce's astral form, but the longer he "fell," the more difficult he'd be to find and return to consciousness.

Adam made the decision to ease the last of the pre-accident cloned cells into place and restart the restoration and repair process. The instant he was sure it was safely underway, he was following Bruce's trail down into the depths of his brother's subconscious, someplace he'd almost never visited in the past. He soon found Bruce talking to a projection of their father on Styx's shore. Adam thought it probably served him right when Bruce imagined him as Chagall's green charger (literally the horse's ass), but he was immensely relieved to have found him and started the process of easing him back into consciousness. Bruce had been okay—no permanent harm done—and just as importantly, the cloned cells had taken to the damaged structures and gone beyond repairing them. After Bruce made it past the complications, nature had taken its course, and Adam's job was mostly done.

The older man placed his hand on Adam's and took it between his hands. He touched his forehead to Adam's and laughed a much more robust laugh than before as he held onto his nephew. "Oh, my God, you did it! I don't even want to know the odds, but you beat them."

"We did. All of us," Adam said. He brushed his uncle's tears away again with his free hand and stroked back the thick silver curls that now covered his head. He started to chuckle and pulled back a bit so he could make eye contact. "For our next impossible feat, let's see if we can get you cleaned up. You may not look like a dragon, but you definitely smell like one." His uncle finally gave him the same lopsided grin he recognized so well from the mirror and Bruce, and Adam knew deep down for certain they shared the same blood.

"I'm glad we have the same warped sense of humor because I was thinking the same thing," his uncle admitted. Adam stood up and helped the Keeper to his feet. "I need to tell you, Adam, that we're not going to have a long time with me in this form before the Gamma starts charging back up and changing me. Cleaning up is worthwhile, but it only goes so far."

"Very well, the express version will have to do," Adam said with a wink, and used his will to pull water from the basin, a touch of fire from inside, and then the air from around them. He handed a soft flannel robe to his startled uncle who was wide-eyed after seeing him draw it from the air. Adam didn't need to use magic here, but he needed the practice. He wanted to try and heal his uncle's scars and ease his pain, too. Adam started to reach out to touch his face as a spell started to coalesce in his mind.

The older man picked up on the thought. "No, Adam. I'm not your next project," he said in his rough voice. Adam couldn't hide that he was disappointed. "Come here, my dear, and sit down," the Keeper said, leading Adam to a couple of flat boulders near the pool, and they both sat down so close they were almost touching. "I need for you to listen to me, Adam, and not treat me as a puzzle to be solved or something broken to mend. As I said before, we are very much alike in our peculiar way of being. I don't know if I'm the first—I doubt it—but you are a significant upgrade, a major improvement to whatever we are. My past was rough, but I survived it. Now, I'm living on borrowed time, and I'm happy for the first time in my life. I know you look around you and see this as hell, but it's my little piece of heaven. I finally have a purpose, an answer to why I exist. Don't worry about me."

Adam pressed his lips tightly together. He wanted to argue, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He finally just reached over and took his uncle's hand and the older man met him with both of his.

"Now, before my ellipse has reached its zenith and takes this form back, we need to talk about the future. It's not a given that Bruce and Natasha will have twins, but I doubt you're the last of our kind, Adam."

"Dr. Vining said there was just a singleton in the sonogram," Adam said doubtfully, but they're scheduled to do a different type of scan tomorrow.

"I still wouldn't be surprised either way. In fact, it would probably be a mercy if there were only one child. Do you have any idea what went wrong with your physical development?"

"We don't have a definitive answer, but usually it's a serious birth defect. Something vital may have been missing or a serious genetic defect. If I'd not been a twin, I would have been miscarried during the first trimester."

"But you weren't," the Keeper prompted.

"Because my cells were absorbed into Bruce as nodes of stem cells. My consciousness survived. We don't know why."

"It's like we were ghosts, Adam," his senior mused.

"Spirit of intellect, astral form, spirit form, specter, shadow, absorbed twin: there are probably a lot more names for us."

"Your father certainly had a few," his uncle joked dryly.

Adam chuckled, "He was always good for expanding Bruce's and my vocabulary."

"That he was," snorted the Keeper.

"Uncle," Adam said after they'd both gone back to being more serious, "have you ever had a name?"

"No, not a given name. I've been called plenty of those other names I won't repeat, but Keeper is fine."

Adam knew how much his own name meant to him. If his uncle wouldn't accept anything else from him, he wished he could think of a better name. "'Prometheus' is too much of a mouthful."

His uncle rolled his eyes. "That's a little too grandiose. If you're going to insist on this, stick to something simple."

"Okay, 'Prometheus' plus 'Keeper' makes 'Peter'?" Adam reasoned.

"I like it. Approved. Seconded. No discussion. All in favor say, aye. Aye! None opposed. Motion carries. Sold. Peter I am," the older man quickly concluded with an impish grin. "Let's come back to a more important subject now. If there is a twin, there is a chance medical technology has advanced far enough to correct a defect in utero if it's caught soon enough."

"I promise, I'm bringing this up with Bruce and Natasha in the morning," Adam assured Peter.

"It's a shame you can't go yourself. You might be able to sense things others won't know to look for."

"I can't go over into reality yet, but it won't be much longer. Natasha would probably let me check or Stephen. He's an actual neurosurgeon. Oh, geeze . . ." Adam rubbed his forehead as if he was getting a migraine.

"What?"

"I just thought of someone who stands a very good chance of detecting a second fetus, but I'll leave it to Natasha and Bruce to deal with her."

Peter raised an eyebrow, "I was under the impression that your winning personality guaranteed you got along with everyone."

It was Adam's turn to snort. "Sometimes the best way to get along with someone you've forgiven for doing something truly horrific, yet who is still scared to death of you, is just to avoid being in the same space."

"The witch girl?"

"Yep. Don't worry. Like I said, Natasha and Bruce are on much better speaking terms. She owes them both several times over."

"All right. That may be all you can do for now," his uncle decided.

"You know what, I'm going to suggest Bruce go with Nat to the appointment in the morning. It dampens down my senses, but he'd probably let me come for a ride-along. Besides, he really, really wants to go, and I'm sure Tony will cover for him."

"Try that if he's willing," Peter agreed. He then grimaced and stood up. "Adam, you may want to move to the far side of the bars just in case."

Adam knew their time had almost run out. He stood and gave his uncle a quick hug, which the older man returned. "I'll come back when I have something to tell you."

"Use up all the Gamma you can first, Adam. Don't risk my hurting you."

"Of course."

Peter took off the robe Adam had given him and retrieved the blanket as well. He folded them both. "Keep those for next time," Adam suggested, and his uncle placed them on a carved-out shelf near the niche where he'd placed the crystal after their first visit. "Would you like another memory to add to the collection?"

"Of course, if you don't mind, I would love to have it," Peter said brightly. He retrieved a clear crystal from the niche and handed it to Adam. "Thank you, Adam. Now, please get on the other side of the bars."

Adam slipped between the rock and cold iron columns and held the crystal in his left hand. He'd thought for a long time about what to share and came up with several happy memories that included him spending time with Bruce. In an early one, they'd been swimming at the first crude second-hand rendition he'd made of Tony's quarry when Adam had appeared to be about eight. It was then Bruce had suggested naming him Adam and explained where he'd gotten the name. Adam had been much more physically demonstrative than he was verbal at that point, so he'd hugged Bruce, and they'd laughed and wrestled until they'd both gone over the edge into the cool water, separated, and kicked to the surface. "Adam Banner, I think you're part fish," Bruce had told him. Adam had laughed and splashed his brother as Bruce slow-motion chased him back into the shallows. That was also one of the few times after they'd just rediscovered each other that he'd become seriously distressed when Bruce had to leave. Adam had started to cry silently, tears streaming down his face without making a sound as Bruce tried to stay with him, but couldn't avoid waking up.

Days later, Bruce had explained that he'd had to leave the safe house in a rush and had spent a couple of tense days moving between locations. They'd stayed in that night and colored at the kitchen table in Dayton and then curled up on the couch to watch an episode of Gun Smoke. When Bruce had to go, this time Adam hugged him and told his brother, "It's okay, Bruce. I know you're safe now." Partings during the first few months had been difficult because neither of them ever felt completely secure, even in the English safe house, till Natasha brought them home. Once they were stably ensconced in the tower, Adam had flourished and so had Bruce on multiple levels. Adam included memories of playing the piano and working with Natasha as Hulk to round out his gift to Peter. He included a brief glimpse of 'Anna smiling at him at the end.

When he turned to his uncle, he had to look up. He was a full two feet taller and twice as thick with muscles. His skin wasn't as dark of a shade of green as Hulk's, but the Gamma in his torso and chest pulsed with his heartbeat. The real indication for Adam of who was inside was his hazel-gold eyes that looked back at his nephew very calmly. What surprised Adam was the iron gray hair that was noticeably darkening up. "Uncle?" he asked.

"I'm here, Adam," he said in a gravelly deep voice.

"I'm finished loading it," Adam told him and let the growing giant reach through the bars so he could set the shining crystal on his large palm.

"Thank you, Adam. Again, I will treasure your gift. Be careful. Don't return until you're certain you've depleted the Gamma enough to talk. Swear it to me."

"I swear I will be careful and make sure you're in Gamma deficit before I approach you."

"Good man. Now go home and get some sleep before you drop. Tomorrow is a big day for all of us."

"Good-bye, Uncle Peter."

"My love goes with you, Adam."

Adam touched his uncle's hand briefly and left quickly climbing the rock steps. He ran most of the way up them. Enjoying the feel of the blood and breath pumping through him, he even welcomed the annoying pains in his knees and ankles as he neared the top. He opened a portal back to the house in Dayton and quickly stepped back into the kitchen and closed the portal behind him. Then he realized he'd forgotten to use the stupid sling-ring and grimaced. Well, what happens in Dayton, stays in Dayton. He'd only stopped there to grab a ginger ale anyway, and then it occurred to him he could just imagine a ginger ale anywhere he wanted. Uncle Peter was right: he was really down-to-the-bone tired. He'd been going to just blink himself to his room in the replica of Bruce and Tasha's apartment, but he very humbly took out the sling-ring and used it to make a textbook perfect portal and stepped through. He closed the portal and said, "Lights." They came on as expected and he looked around the room. Something was off. He could very faintly smell Bruce here. Not like he was in the room, but like he had been here enough that his caramel and salt smell lingered. Then he noticed there were many more books on the shelves with readable titles than there had been, and there were three new large-print Harry Potter books on his shelf that he'd asked for as a reward last week. Adam walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked out over the city. He'd never imagined this. Fuckety-fuck-fuck-fuck! This was embarrassing.

Adam dug the sling-ring back out of his pocket and looked at it accusingly, "If this is your doing, I know a dragon who will definitely melt you down for me." He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, preparing to very carefully open a portal back to the right bedroom in his realm this time.

That's when Friday's lilting voice asked, "Is that you, Hulk? Do you require assistance?"

Fuckety-fuck-fuck! "Uh, yes, Friday, it's Hulk. Nice to hear you again. Just stopped by for some bedtime reading materials," he said as he picked up the first Harry Potter book and shoved it under his left arm. "I was just getting ready to leave."

"I detected some atmospheric anomalies in the same room earlier this afternoon and one again a few minutes ago. Would you know anything about them?"

"Yes, those were portals. Bruce and I were using the Wi-Fi to text. I think that's what he was doing. I don't own a phone and I'm just borrowing Natasha's spare one. I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"A wee bit," Friday noted with a lilt. "Ms. Potts is outside the hall door. I suggest you let her in and explain what's happened before she calls Mr. Hogan or Mr. Fury, which she should have done if she'd listened to me. Be careful. She has a very expensive signed collector's baseball bat."

Oh, just FUCK. Adam sucked up his pride and ran to the door. He threw the locks and opened the door just as Pepper was getting ready to knock.

"Bruce?! What are you doing here?" Pepper demanded with a very surprised look. She was still in the dress she'd worn to the charity event but without her heels. Adam was taller than Bruce and Tony, so in his dress shoes he was a few inches taller than the statuesque CEO in her stocking feet.

"Please don't hit me, Ms. Potts. I'm not Bruce, but I'm closely related to him. I could make something up that sounded really logical and normal, but I don't want to run up my negative karma points any higher by lying to you."

She looked at him skeptically, but she didn't raise the bat she'd been hiding behind her back. "Okay, I'm listening," she said with narrowed eyes as blue as steel.

"Bruce wouldn't have mentioned me because I'm his brother. My name is Adam. We didn't speak for a long time, but we've patched things back up."

"Nice to meet you, Adam. I'll shake your hand when I'm sure you're safe. Go ahead."

"It's nice to meet you Ms. Potts. We have met before, but I didn't look like this. In fact, you've probably seen plenty of news footage and Tony's helmet cam video of me when I'm much larger and greener and not wearing a shirt or shoes. But, thanks to Tony, I am at least wearing pants."

"Hulk?" she said in disbelief, looking him up and down.

"Yah, that's what I normally go by." He gave her a very shy smile, and she further scrutinized his face.

"Your eyes and your mouth are definitely right. Let me see your left hand."

He complied but kept his movement slow and steady. "Bruce has a black hourglass tattoo on his left wrist under his watch, but I don't have any tattoos."

"Where is Natasha's?" Pepper countered.

"She got it in December." He really did not want to get into the details.

"Where is it?" she challenged.

"She'll kill me and so will Bruce if I divulge anything."

"You're clearly embarrassed about something," Pepper guessed. "If you don't want me to rat you out, tell me where it's located. I already know the answer, so you're not divulging anything."

"Her upper, upper . . . uh, thigh," he said with a scowl.

"Close enough."

Adam finally let out his breath. "Please don't mention it to Tony."

"I'm not about to. He wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut, and her friendship means much more to me than that."

"Plus, she'd kill you, too."

"And that is true as well. All right, tall, green-eyed, and not Bruce, let's go sit down and you can explain to me what happened."

((o))

After the odd start, dinner was extremely enjoyable. The ingredients were either produced locally or grown in the chef's greenhouse off the atrium. They ordered three different entrees and switched twice. Tony had objected at first, but got into the spirit of it when he liked Natasha's crispy-skinned duck and fingerling heirloom potatoes more than his smoked pork chops or Bruce's lamb osso bucco over wild rice. The pianist turned out to have a gorgeous voice, so they were serenaded with torch songs and a few Broadway tunes before they had to leave. Joseph had run them up to the University and taken a different street to the campus that led to the service entrance behind the auditorium. Mal's people had scouted everything out, so all Bruce and Natasha had to do was slip into the front of the rapidly filling auditorium and sit down in their reserved seats while Tony inspected the podium and equipment with Jenks, Kayla's significant other.

Bruce had hoped to see Betty and Lee again, but he couldn't spot them in the audience from the wing of the stage. They had likely headed home after Lee's presentation. He helped Natasha out of her coat and they left them backstage before slipping out the side door into the hallway where they almost literally ran into the same reporter who'd spoken to Bruce the previous evening.

"Good to see you again, Dr. Banner. Jack McGee from the Enquirer. Would you mind answering a few questions? That was some display of strength earlier today at the Roebling Bridge. What's it like to use your talents in a constructive way rather than to hurt people like in Johannesburg?"

"Excuse me," Natasha said as she jammed one of her spiked heels into the reporter's foot. As he bent forward in pain, she caught him in the nose with her left elbow. "Oops," she said as she stepped past him. Bruce tried not to smile too much as he offered her his arm, and they continued down the service hall. Before they entered the main foyer, she'd texted the security detail, so they could once again secure the area and escort Mr. McGee out. Someone was going to get chewed out. Bruce was pretty sure Mal would beat Natasha to it, which was probably a good thing for whoever had screwed up.

Natasha had been to a few academic and science-related functions with Bruce, but this was the first conference event of this size for which they were not trying to blend in. All eyes were on her as he walked Natasha down the aisle and they took their seats up front. He leaned close to her ear to ask, "How's your arm?"

"I don't think he got any blood on the dress, so I'm not complaining," she answered quietly. "I take it that's the same one who tried to needle you yesterday about the general?"

"The very same one in the very same suit, but definitely more aggressive than the first time."

"That's the second reporter in two days," she said, and Bruce looked at her quizzically. "But that's a story for later. So, tell me what Tony decided to talk about? He had it narrowed down to five topics the last time we talked about it."

Bruce grinned, "If you don't know, I'm going to let it be a surprise."

"Oh, come on," she coaxed.

"Let's just say it's something that I worry about every time you're on a mission and I'm not there."

That got her thinking. It probably was not a weapon because she had plenty of those and she doubted this crowd would be that interested in a tweaking of her Widow's Sting. Knowing Bruce, it would have something to do with protecting her. Body armor? She certainly didn't want or need a suit. Then it hit her that it was something medical, but what would it be? Synthetic blood, stasis foam, healing lamps? She wasn't sure at all. "Is nitrous oxide involved?" she asked Bruce.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "No, I'm pretty sure it's not."

"Does it involve triage?"

"Yes, you have one more question."

"Cheater," she complained.

"That is not a question."

"I'm going to make you pay for this later."

"Ooo, is that a threat or a promise? I'm really hoping it's a promise," he replied in a low sexy voice with just a bit of a growl to it. She tilted her head and batted her eyes at him. "Just watch," he said and chewed his lower lip.

God, he could be such a tease! The lights in the auditorium dimmed, and the stage lighting and the curtain came up. One of the conference's officials gave an appropriately nerdy introduction naming Tony's list of accomplishments in science and engineering, which ended with helping save the Roebling Bridge that morning. That brought the audience to its feet applauding as Tony walked out like a rock star in a tailored suit. He grinned and nodded, "Thank you. Maybe I should play it safe and just skip to the end." Several people shouted, "No!" and the applause died down as people took their seats. That was as rowdy as an academic crowd got.

"I want to thank the Conference Board for letting me crash their event and giving me the honor of speaking to you this evening. When it comes to the theme of science and ethics, one of the first things that came to my mind is the reason I broke decades of family tradition and got out of the arms business a few years back when I saw what products with my name on them could do firsthand to people who want nothing to do with war. I decided that wasn't a legacy I wanted to leave, so I changed my company's direction. Now Stark Industries is leading the way in clean energy, but that's not what I want to talk to you about tonight. Even after Stark Industries got out of the weapons business, the demand for weapons of war has not decreased. In some parts of the world, it's actually gotten worse."

Tony casually paced the stage. "I'm lucky enough to get together with some of my friends from time to time to help prevent violence and bloodshed. Unfortunately, we're often too late to help everyone or sometimes we even contribute to so-called collateral damage. We especially witnessed this in Sokovia and Johannesburg when thousands of people were injured or killed. Rather than just lament the loss of life and limb we'd caused or deny the fact that these sorts of catastrophes, both natural and manmade, will inevitably happen again, my lab partner, Dr. Banner and I decided to put our heads together and come up with solutions for some of the unfortunate byproducts disasters cause. His radiation retardant and neutralizing product is already being used by fire and rescue units around the globe with the profits helping those injured in South Africa." This garnered a round of applause that Bruce acknowledged with a nod. The attention made him feel extremely uncomfortable, but he tried not to show it.

"The next idea from this collaboration came about when we considered the difficulty of treating large numbers of injured people with very limited resources. In disasters such as earthquakes when collapsing buildings cause broken or crushed bones, survivors need to have immediate treatment to save lives, limbs, and mobility."

Natasha leaned close to Bruce and whispered, "Don't tell me you two did 'Doctor in a Box'." She'd been present during that brainstorming session and suggested the idea months before, but hadn't heard anything since.

"Well, that was the start of it, but it's just beginning to come to fruition. This started with your germ of an idea plus an inflatable cast with sensors I'd been working on, and Tony took it up several levels with input from Helen Cho and others."

Tony had cued Jenks and the image of what looked like a sleek white gauntlet stretched across the stage's large monitor. "This is what we are tentatively calling the Mobile-Diagnostic Triage Interface Unit or M-DTIU. It's designed to fit over a limb and adjusts its size to fit the individual. Once in place, the unit assesses the individual's status and the extent of the injury. From there it can consult with a physician for further instructions or operate independently and perform basic applications on its own or work with individuals present on the scene."

The audience was humming with excitement as the video showed the various types of treatments the unit could apply from administering painkillers and antibiotics to scanning, resetting, and immobilizing broken bones. Natasha squeezed Bruce's hand, imagining all the lives this might improve or even save. She could think of several missions where the technology would have been of great help if not outright saving a life. She continued stroking the palm of Bruce's hand with her thumb, but he wasn't responding and his fingers were uncharacteristically cool to the touch. She looked over at him and he was staring straight ahead, nothing was moving except that his jaw muscles were clenching. She took his hand in both of hers. "Bruce, what's going on?"

He looked at her with real fear in his eyes. "I can't find Adam. He's not inside, and he's not in his realm. I'm not sure what to do."

Natasha looked around and made certain no one was watching them before making her move. "We're going to exit through that door beside the stage, and I'm going to check the reception in the hallway. Then we'll see if we can get him to answer the phone before we become really concerned and contact Strange. Got it?" she asked Bruce.

"Got it," he said in an unusually flat, emotionless voice. From time to time, Bruce had suffered anxiety attacks, but generally Natasha (or occasionally Tony) could talk him through them. This one felt much different. It was as if he'd come completely untethered from his emotions and had no means to ground himself. He followed her out the door and into the service hallway. He was beginning to feel physically ill, so he wrapped his arms around himself and leaned back against the wall. His heart was starting to pound, and he was breaking out in a cold sweat. His vision was also beginning to narrow under the florescent lighting in the white tiled hallway, so he closed his eyes and rocked himself.

Natasha texted her other phone: "Where are you, Adam?" It quickly pinged that the message was delivered. "The phone got the message," she reported to Bruce.

In a few more moments a reply came up: "Sitting on your couch in your apartment and talking to Ms. Potts."

Natasha closed her eyes and thought a quick, Slava Bogu! "The good news is we've found him," she told Bruce. "The bad news is Adam is not where he's supposed to be." She showed the screen to Bruce who nodded his head in acknowledgment, but could do little more. He still couldn't connect with Adam, and it was beginning to give him a rush of flight-or-fight adrenaline to push him into hyperventilating. He loosened his necktie and tried to focus on his breathing exercises. He tried to reason with himself that Adam was okay and no one had grabbed him or taken him away. Adam hadn't left or abandoned him either. In the meantime, Natasha had called Adam, and he quickly answered.

"Natasha?"

"Adam! What's going on? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry. Tell Bruce not to worry. I just got really tired and opened a portal to the wrong place and set Friday off and scared Ms. Potts, but we're fine now and just talking while I rest up and then go back to the right place."

Natasha breathed a huge sigh of relief. She'd thought the quarantine was a pretty shallow cover for buying more time to figure out what to do with Adam, but she wasn't going to tell him that. He'd probably already figured that out himself. "Just as long as you're okay and Pepper is fine. I was really hoping to introduce you two without giving her a heart attack."

"Speaking of heart attacks," Adam said sheepishly, "may I talk to Bruce? I can tell he's having some problems because he's shutdown communications too tight for me to get a read on him."

Natasha turned back to Bruce and immediately knew he was getting deeper into a feedback loop as his biology reinforced the anxiety. "Bruce, Adam wants to talk to you. I'll hold the phone," she told him, keeping her voice steady and soothing.

Adam had witnessed a few of the anxiety attacks from the inside, but not the outside, so he followed Natasha's lead. "Bruce, I am so sorry. I messed up and broke quarantine, but I'm fine. No physical issues. My breathing is good. Head's fine. I just need to catch my breath here and put a portal through to the right bedroom this time. I know you're there. I can hear you breathing."

Bruce had quit rocking and opened his eyes. He laughed and finally took the phone from Natasha. "I can't feel you, so I'm just listening to you. Keep talking."

"I can feel you, but you're really shut down tight. Let's think of swimming at Tony's quarry lake. The sun is warm. I'm small and I can't speak very well yet. You tell me about our mom. What was she like?" Adam asked.

"She had dark brown hair that had waves in it. It was really fine and soft to the touch. She had freckles, but her skin was very fair, so she wore a wide-brimmed hat when she gardened or we went to the beach. She had eyes just like yours. They were a beautiful deep green that you don't see very often. She would have loved you. Rich told me today that she'd wanted to name me Adam Bruce, but Dad had insisted on Robert instead."

"Wow, so I might have been calling you Adam?"

"Yah, and you could be Bob or Rob or whatever. Uck, Bobby Banner. I think our names worked out for the best."

"I sense you really clearly now. Try looking for me again, but look closer this time," Adam suggested.

Bruce closed his eyes and reached out, "Here you are, practically right next to me."

"I promised you that I'm not leaving you any time soon. My life is still here with you. We're family, bro."

"I thought I'd lost you . . . that someone had grabbed you or you left for Nix."

"I'd never go without telling you, and I'd like to see someone try to take me."

"You never know, Adam," Bruce said. "Okay, I'm calming down. Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm tired. I visited the Gamma. There's so much to tell you, but it's going to wait till tomorrow."

"So what happened with the portal? I thought you had that completely mastered," Bruce asked.

"I got a little cocky and forgot to use the sling-ring to go to Dayton and then tried to be good and used it to go to the bedroom in my replica of your apartment, but I overshot and it was the real bedroom here in your real apartment. By the way, thanks for the Harry Potter books."

"You're welcome. Did you eat something or not? We didn't hear anything from Kayla."

"I made dinner. Apples, celery, crackers, and peanut butter."

"Adam, that's like a snack for a grade schooler. Let me I speak to Pepper?" Adam rolled his eyes and passed the phone to Pepper who handed him a glass of ginger ale in exchange for it. "How are you doing, Pep?" Bruce asked tentatively.

"You have a very charming brother, Bruce. I think I may have to keep him. Of course Friday and I would have appreciated a heads up to expect portals in your spare bedroom."

"I'm sorry. That's my fault. We've been winging it all day and that slipped through the cracks. It's one very long story, which is mostly going to have to wait till we get back. Adam was supposed to stay put, but as you can tell, that's easier said than accomplished."

"Well, can I feed him? I think he looks hungry," she half teased as she winked at Adam and walked into the kitchen.

"I was actually going to ask that as a favor. He doesn't have very sophisticated tastes. Think ten or twelve years old."

"Then where's your Velveeta. Don't deny you have it because Nat says you have a stash."

"It's not a secret, and I'm not a cheese snob when it comes to comfort foods. Check the drawer about waist high on the right with the other more legit cheeses."

Pepper opened the refrigerator and retrieved the block of processed pale orange cheese. "Got it. Soup is in the pantry, right?"

"Yes, all kinds of it. Nat likes it, so we're well stocked."

"Okay, I will get him fed, and he's insisting he's going to go home. Good, God, which of you two alphabetized the soup cans? How's Tony's presentation going?"

"Me. I was bored. The audience was appropriately dazzled. I can hear the applause now, so it's time for the Q & A. I hope he notices we're not there before he attempts to embarrass two empty seats." Pepper laughed at that. "Thank you for doing this, Pep. We've got too many balls in the air." She snorted. "Sorry! Bad metaphor. Just, thank you!"

"Get some sleep. That appointment comes early tomorrow, so be ready to go," she said.

"She will be," Bruce assured her.

"You're both going," Pepper corrected.

"Oh, thanks for letting me know," he said, a bit surprised, but pleased with the idea. Why hadn't he thought of that?

"Here, talk to your transportation." Pepper handed the phone back off to Adam.

"Are you going to be okay, Adam?"

"Yah, I'm just really embarrassed, but no harm done. See you in the morning."

"Love you, Adam."

"You, too, Bruce."

Bruce ended the call and handed the phone back to Natasha. Somehow he'd been too distracted to notice how their coats had gotten there, but he helped her into hers before pulling his on. "Feeling better?" she asked him.

"I think we made it through," Bruce said with a tight smile. "Thanks for helping talk me down."

"I was worried for a bit, but you look better now. Tony is still answering questions and probably will be for a good long while. Come with me," she said with a smile and a raised eyebrow. He finally grinned, knowing she was up to something. Natasha took his hand and gently stroked his tattoo with a finger under his watchband as she led him out the exit door to the small area where the Hummer was parked. The large vehicle was running, but Joseph was nowhere to be seen. Natasha pulled out the keys and punched the button to open the back door. Bruce held the door open for her, wondering what she had planned.

Natasha slid across the heated seats and Bruce followed her in and shut the door, sitting down next to her. The lights dimmed to low, the windows adjusted to opaque, and the privacy shield went up between the front and backseats. "Doc, I think we're finally alone, and I'll bet you have a few intense kinks we need to work out. Take your coat off and lean back." He had to admit, part of him really got off when she took control. Bruce removed his coat and jacket and laid them on the opposite seat. "Don't laugh," Natasha said as she worked with the sound system. "This thing's selection of music is sadly lacking." Barry White's deep, mellow voice came over the speakers. "The Wi-Fi isn't connecting or I'd have downloaded more Barry and something besides Kenny G."

Bruce bit his lips to keep from laughing, "It could be a lot worse."

Nat shook her head, "We'll make due. Now, adjust the seat, lay back, and relax. No more anxiety this evening." Bruce was definitely feeling grounded again and less anxious. He adjusted the seat and lay back as she instructed. See, this wasn't so difficult. Natasha had shrugged out of her coat and hiked up her skirt, so she could straddle his hips. Using his necktie, she pulled him back up to meet her lips, but she only gave him a quick peck as she untied it. Bruce pouted with disappointment. Next, she unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it out of his slacks and pushing it back to expose his neck, shoulders, and front with the dark trail of hair running down from his chest to his abs and into his pants. He watched her as she worked on his clothes. She shifted her weight to his knees, so she could unbuckle his belt and unfastened and unzipped his pants.

"Are you going to have your way with me, Ms. Romanoff?" Bruce asked in a low, husky voice. He knew she was doing this to distract him and head him off from going into a funk, and he loved her so much for doing it.

"I plan to, but you can have some input," she teased as she cupped his balls and rubbed him gently through his boxers. She could feel him thickening up and growing a little warmer.

"Use me. I want to watch you get off," he said as he moved his hips, encouraging her to keep touching him. "Please don't stop."

"So that's the kink we're working on?" she asked. He nodded, biting his lower lip. Natasha took a moment to remove her excess lipstick with a tissue. "I'm going to mark you first, Lover. Everyone is going to see it and know you're mine. Then I'm going to ride you like a stallion till I come."

"Do it," he moaned. "Please do it!" There was something about her using him to get off that turned him on, even if he couldn't articulate why.

With a sly smile, she moved forward, so she was straddling his hips again, rubbing and playing with him as she licked up the left side of his neck. "Mmm, I've not tasted you this salty in a while," she teased. He continued to groan and squirm with pleasure. In a few swift moves, she removed his necktie and grabbed his wrists, holding them above his head as she tied them together. "You're not getting away from me," she cooed in his ear.

"Never!" he groaned. "I'm yours to use." She could feel him engorging as his erection strained against the fabric of his shorts and pressed into her crotch. Natasha found the spot at the base of his neck that held much of his tension and she bit down. He cried out and jerked from head to toe. Chert! He was really wound tight. She bit down more firmly, but not enough to draw blood. He was the one who was really good at this move, but she was determined to use it successfully on him. Finally, her patience paid off and Bruce relaxed, and she sucked hard to bruise him. "I'm yours, Natasha. Do with me whatever you want," he said languorously as much of the tension left him.

Nat grinned as she looked down at Bruce. He was all dark eyes and those handsome malleable lips she was going to kiss shortly, but first . . . "Turn your head. We don't want your right side getting jealous of the left." She nipped the skin over his artery from his ear down and finally let his wrists go, so she could run her red nails around his nipples and through the thicket of dark hair on his chest. Natasha bit down on the correct muscle at the base of his neck on the right, and Bruce moaned her name as more tension ebbed out of him in a wave of pain and pleasure. She marked him again, and he closed his eyes and held still beneath her. For once, he looked peaceful, lost in the sensation of belonging as if the worst of his troubles were gone. "Don't go to sleep, Babe. I've got plans." He opened his dark eyes and smiled up at her, quietly but insistently rubbing his monster hard-on against her thigh through his boxers. "Don't worry. I've not forgotten about you," she told him with a smirk.

Natasha moved off his lap, so she could pull his slacks further down. He raised up his hips, so she could ease the boxers down, too. Bruce sighed as the restrictions of the clothing were finally gone. She stroked his length. If it wouldn't have sent him right back into a fit of anxiety, she'd have sucked his veined shaft like candy. "Still up for a ride, Big Guy?" she asked as she took a quick radiation reading that registered as background level for what seemed like the thousandth time.

"Your stallion awaits," he assured her with a grin.

"So we're doing this 'bareback'?" she asked to make sure he could handle not wearing a condom.

"I'm doing my best to be logical," he said more seriously. "Besides, it feels so much better without those damn things."

Natasha giggled and grinned like a fool. Inside, she was doing an end-zone victory dance. After months of dealing with Bruce's fears of toxicity and anxiety issues, this was the breakthrough she'd been oh so gently nudging him toward one intimate moment at a time since they'd first made love. She untied his wrists, and he rubbed them briefly before smoothing out and folding up the necktie and tossing it onto his suit jacket on the other seat. Natasha had donned some new lingerie that she knew he'd like. She slipped the backless dress off over her head to reveal she was wearing a garter belt with her stockings and black silk panties that tied with ribbons on the sides. The dress had built-in support, so she hadn't needed a bra.

"Please leave your heels on," Bruce requested.

"All right, I'll try to avoid impaling you," she teased. Natasha straddled his legs again, and Bruce leaned forward to kiss her breasts and rub her back as he worked his way down her torso with his lips. She smelled of floral and citrus and something new he couldn't quite place. His gaze settled on her remaining clothing. "I love these," he said as he inspected the lingerie. "Garter belts and stockings are so hot! It's like you're giftwrapped," he teased as he stroked the ribbons between his fingers.

"Well, unwrap me and open me up then," she encouraged him as she ruffled his hair.

Bruce used his teeth to pull the ribbon tails and untie the bows before he took off her panties and tossed them on the pile of clothing. He pulled her close and rubbed his face in her crotch as he squeezed her beautiful ass. "You smell so good, Nat," he told her. The new smell was something like evergreen, no, an herb . . . rosemary. There was something sweet, too. It was close to her pineapple undertone, but definitely a different scent. He'd figure it out later. Bruce nuzzled her red-gold triangle of hair and parted her nether lips with his fingers, licking the edges of her vaginal opening and then her clit slowly, oh, so slowly in a circular pattern.

She ran her fingers through his hair, gasping as he worked her with his lips and tongue, kissing and teasing her. Before he even inserted a finger, she came gently with a blush of color as he steadied her.

"My goodness, that was fast. Have you missed me that much?" he asked with wonder.

"You don't know the half of it, Love," she said breathlessly. "I've wanted you all day. I need you inside me, Bruce."

He kissed her tenderly along her thighs, and then he lay back on the reclining seat again. As Natasha repositioned herself, Bruce grasped her hips and guided her to his eager cock. She settled back on her knees and Bruce adjusted, so she could have control and take him as deep as she liked. She was good and wet, so he easily slid his hard, thick shaft into her as she settled over his hips. "Yes," she sighed and began to slide up and down, taking him deep and grinding into him as she used the springiness and bounce of the seat. He offered his hands to steady her and she entwined her fingers with his. "You feel so good. Yes. Yes. Yes," she kept moving in rhythm as he watched her.

Natasha was so physically intense with her lovemaking that he was really getting turned on as she rode him. The shoes were just damn sexy, and the garters and stockings contrasting with her pale skin were a part of it, too. Bruce could feel her tightening up around his cock as she slid up and down his length. He'd finally had enough of mostly watching and thrust his hips into her. Matching each other's give-and-take, their bodies moved together. The sound and feel of flesh on flesh slapping together was driving them both to the edge. There was something about feeling the hair on his thighs and his body hair against her as she rode him that aroused her so damn much. In a few minutes Natasha came hard and collapsed on top of Bruce as he let go and emptied into her with an animal roar of her name. He held her close, wrapping his arms around her as they caught their breath. She kissed him, and they held each other for a few precious minutes longer.

Natasha rested her head on his chest as he kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair. "Bruce, I so want to marry you," she confessed. "I want this every day and night. I want you to be my husband."

"I love you so much, Natasha. Are you sure? I am one big hot mess," he said apologetically and ran his warm hands lovingly up and down her back.

"We both are, but that's what keeps this all from getting into a domestic rut," she theorized.

He chuckled, "Right now, I'd love a domestic rut. Maybe one day we'll find one."

"Don't bet on it any time soon, Doc," she said, and they had one more long, passionate kiss before cleaning up and waiting a bit longer for Tony to finish schmoozing with his adoring public, so they could head back to the hotel.

 **End Notes:** Hope you enjoyed it! The plot gets a few points resolved while others thicken! Let me know if you have questions or comments. Some of this was a long time in coming, so I hope you'll want to talk. The responses really keep me going, and I appreciate the encouragement.

I have some health challenges and surgery coming up this month, so it may take a while to post the next chapter (though it's already started). Thank you for sticking with me and the gang!


	58. Chapter 58

**Chapter 58: Strangers in Stranger Lands**

 **Summary:** Adam and Pepper have grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Nat and Bruce discuss baby names. Everybody goes to sleep. Bruce dreams and meets a mutual acquaintance or two. Really, it is a bit more interesting than that. Fluff warning.

 **Notes:** Yea, I'm back here on the big one! Medical news is good (no cancer), but it was very major surgery, which is going to take months of recovery. I'm still going, but I'm not back up to speed yet.

Any errors are all mine, so let me know if you see anything that needs fixing. Send positive thoughts Autumn_Froste's way!

If you're a Carl Jung fan, this is your chapter.

Go fix yourself a grilled cheese and tomato soup and put on some happy music!

Adam breathed a sigh of relief as he slipped Natasha's spare phone into his pocket. He could read Bruce quite clearly now. His heart rate was calming down, and his level of anxiety was dropping. Nat was right there with him, so they'd be fine. Adam dampened his connection to his brother, so they both had their relative privacy. He pinched the bridge of his nose. _Fuckety-fuck-fuck indeed!_ Bruce hadn't been close to Hulking out, but he'd had a pretty serious panic attack. Adam knew what had happened to Bruce was mostly his fault, but opening a portal to his bedroom in the real world had been an honest mistake. No more stupid slip ups, he promised himself . . . at least not today.

"Hey, Adam, would you like barley beef, chicken noodle, cream of chicken, mushroom, split pea, tomato, or vegetable?" Pepper asked as she scanned the pantry.

"I know I like tomato. Thank you for helping me out," he said, brightening up a bit. At least Pepper felt comfortable enough with him now to leave the baseball bat she'd been carrying on the coffee table.

"No problem, Adam. Tomato soup for two it is." Pepper grabbed Bruce's apron to protect her dress and gathered up two cans of soup. If she was making late dinner, they were both having late dinner.

"May I help, Ms. Potts?" Adam asked as he watched her searching for cooking equipment.

"Adam, call me Pepper. If you want milk in the soup, pull that out of the refrigerator . . . and the butter . . . and the mayonnaise."

"That it?" he asked as he pulled the mayo out of the door. He hoped so because he was running out of hands.

"Um, yes, I think so." Pepper was rummaging through the shelving near the stove. "Any idea where the pots and pans are? At least the griddle is part of the stove, so he couldn't hide that."

"Look up," Adam suggested.

Pepper laughed. "Oh! I don't remember that rack being there before." She grabbed a medium-sized, copper-bottomed sauce pan off one of the hooks on the overhead rack. "Could you slice the Velveeta? I'm trying to keep my nails intact."

"Sure. Let me open the soup cans then," he suggested as he lined up the ingredients. The cans were pull-tops, so he knew how to handle them in short order. He pulled a wire cheese slicer out of the correct drawer on the second try and found a cutting board on the counter. Adam then remembered to wash his hands before he opened anything else. Pepper laughed. "What? Did I mess something up?" he asked as he pulled a fresh towel out of another drawer.

"You line things up just like Bruce does," she noted as she set a loaf of oat bread at the end of Adam's column of ingredients.

"No, Bruce would do it perfectly straight. I can do this," he moved the mayo jar out of line, "and it doesn't bother me."

Pepper giggled, "Oh, you're not saying he can be a little anal retentive, are you?"

"Or maybe borderline obsessive compulsive," he suggested. "It's kind of all mixed in with the autism. To be honest, it's an occupational asset in his case since he has to be detail oriented."

"I can see that. It's still kind of endearing though."

Adam snorted, "As long as he doesn't get in a behavioral or mental loop for a half hour."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "Try dealing with someone as impulsive as a three year old who's completely oppositional."

Adam snorted again because he couldn't help himself. "I'm sorry, Pepper. I know you were talking about Tony, but Bruce probably feels the same way about me." She smiled and nodded. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh," he said. "I really like Tony, but it can't be easy for you, especially when Steve seems to have his number."

"So, you've noticed it, too? It's like every daddy issue possible . . ." She shook her head like she wanted to empty it of the subject. "Adam, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't vent and dump on you."

"It's okay. We're both sort of witnesses to some pretty epic psychodrama from time to time. Tony externalizes while Bruce internalizes." He threw his hands up, "I'm not in a position to judge anyone."

Pepper sighed. "Me either. Tell me, what's it like to be that close to someone for so long?"

"You mean, like stuck in someone's head? You have to get along or at least tolerate one another or it's pretty miserable, why?"

"You've been together since the beginning, since you were born, right? That still has to be hard on you both?"

"We didn't know it wasn't normal. I had no idea I wasn't Bruce for a long, long time. Eventually, I was the one doing the comforting and the cheer leading. I was sort of like Jiminy Cricket part of the time. Bruce was a really good kid, so it was mainly keeping him on task when he needed redirection. We got along really well up until the accident anyway."

"That must have been awful," she said, her voice full of honest concern.

"Being cut off from Bruce was awful, but we survived and life is good again. Better, in fact." He smiled at Pepper. "I really don't have much to complain about at the moment."

"Yah, finally, a body of your own that's not over eight feet tall and green, huh? Are you getting used to it?"

"I've always vicariously felt what Bruce does sensory-wise, so that's not been too much of an adjustment. The aches and pains are new, but they're nothing like a transformation. Being able to make choices that affect just me, like knowing when to eat and sleep are new to me, too. I've always had the Gamma to fall back on before, so feeling hungry and tired are weird. All I had to do was rev up the ol' green engine and I was fine. Now, I have to do something about it. I'm figuring it out though. I kinda like the challenges."

"You do know about the bathroom, right?" she said, somewhat seriously.

"Yah, I got that covered," he said with a chuckle.

"Thank goodness!" They both laughed. Pepper looked at him and thought Adam appeared to be a version of Bruce whom life hadn't weighed down so much since they had to have gone through almost everything together, but she knew that wasn't quite accurate. True, he'd obviously been shielded from the day-to-day grind, but there was a different attitude at work there, too. Bruce's self-confidence wasn't immediately apparent; like so much about the physicist, it was internalized. The guy knew he was a genius, but he seldom put his ego on display. Bruce was almost Tony's opposite in that respect. Tony was ego and talk, which he usually backed up with the goods. Bruce always kept his own council until he was ready to talk and held his cards close to the vest. Pepper could already tell Adam was more open, more willing to engage. She thought of the good-natured head-butting she'd seen between Hulk and Thor. His willingness to let Natasha and Clint climb all over him and use his physical size for a tactical shot or protection. Then it occurred to her this was also the person who'd leapt into the sky and caught Tony. He was also the one who'd walked into the Reconciliation Meeting, towering over everyone, but he'd stayed calm and dignified and bowed humbly without complaint. Then he'd patiently listened to people vent their anger and grief at him before he prostrated himself on the floor to ask their forgiveness in a deep clear voice. At the end of the process, once the aggrieved had all finished their statements, he'd cried with them, too. The people had all come forward and touched his arms and his back and his face as he knelt there on his knees. One woman had wiped away both her tears and Hulk's with the same handkerchief. Every individual who'd interacted with Adam, forgave him, understanding that they'd all been victimized in some way.

"How toasted do you like your grilled cheese, Adam?" Pepper asked.

"Browned, but not blackened. To tell the truth, I'd eat it any way it was served right now. Do you think you could show me how to turn on the griddle part and how that works? I want to learn to cook, so I don't have to keep asking for help or living on peanut butter."

"Sure, I can do that. This is the same brand stove as ours upstairs, but it has a different layout. You have to take the cover off the griddle and grill part first." She removed the metal cover sheet on the back part of the appliance's surface and set it aside. "You don't want to forget to remove the cover because it's a pain in the butt to do when it gets hot." He nodded and watched her closely. "This is a modern appliance so it has a self-striker or igniter, and you don't need a match. Press in on the middle red part and you can hear it start up. It's sort of like having a pilot light in a gas furnace."

"And if you don't hear it?" he asked.

"Turn the gas off and call Tony because he loves to relight those things. Just kidding. You have to take off the actual griddle plate and relight the pilot thing. Are you really taking notes?"

"I was considering it, but I don't think I'll need to," he said as he squatted down and looked at the burners from the same level as the stove top. "It's a lot more friendly to operate than other burners I've seen my brother use."

"Bunsen burners and blow torches are much more dramatic, I'm sure, but they are pretty straightforward," Pepper said.

"Don't forget camp stoves. Those can be a pain," he noted.

Pepper nodded with agreement. "Okay, once it's on and you've adjusted the flame with the dial like that, you just wait for it to get hot enough. If you want the bread brown and the cheese melted, medium is probably the safest temperature."

"Okay, how much Velveeta do you want sliced? Two sandwiches apiece?" Adam asked.

"Go for it! All I've had to eat are two hors d'oeuvres in front of people who were judging me."

"I promise I won't do that," he said with an easy smile.

Pepper had found a wooden spoon in a crock on the counter, and she poured and scooped the concentrated tomato soup into the pan. "Did we decide on milk or water in the soup?"

"Maybe do one of each?" he suggested.

"Okay, that's fair. Tony and I usually end up with two separate pans."

"I bet you're milk, right?"

"Good guess, Mr. Banner."

"Make it two milks then, Ms. Potts." They both grinned amicably over their common ground.

He'd finished slicing the Velveeta and pulled down a couple of plates from the right cabinet before he opened up the bread. "Don't go crazy with the mayo, right?"

"Just enough to keep them together until the cheese melts. You can be more generous with the butter, but it's always messy." Pepper laid the spoon she'd been using in the sink and switched it out for a whisk from the crock as she put the pan of soup on one of the front burners. "Okay, pop quiz. See if you can turn on the burner, Adam." He wiped his fingers on the towel he'd left on the counter and looked at the controls for a moment before he depressed the red igniter and adjusted the flame by turning the knob. "Good job," she acknowledged.

Adam went back and finished assembling sandwiches as Pepper whisked the soup as it heated. "How about some music?" he asked.

"As long as it's light and not heavy metal."

"Okay, not a problem. Friday, Bruce's Happy Mix One please." Bobby McFerrin's mellow voice came over the speakers.

Pepper giggled, "Now that's literal."

Adam shrugged and smiled. "I don't think it's meant to be ironic." He held his hand a few inches above the griddle. It seemed pretty hot, but he turned to the sink to wet his fingers and flicked a few drops on the hot surface. It danced across the metal but not as quickly as it did with a higher heat.

"I think it's heated enough," Pepper said and adjusted the flame down a small bit. "Why don't you stir this, and I'll flip the first couple of those and talk you through the rest?"

"Deal," Adam said and took her place with the whisk at the soup pan.

"When you start to get a little steam coming off the surface, lower the heat on the burner," she instructed. "The tomato and milk parts are pretty well incorporated, so you're just using the whisk to make sure nothing sticks and burns on the bottom." Pepper inspected the sandwiches and put two down on the hot rectangle where they made a hissing sizzle. She already had a metal spatula in hand.

Adam had turned the burner under the soup pan down and stirred as instructed. He whistled along with the song and Pepper joined him. It got harder to whistle as they got tickled, so they tried to sing and it got worse. "Oh, no, no, no! Don't worry! Be happy!"

Pepper checked the undersides of the sandwiches and flipped them with the metal spatula as Adam watched. He grabbed two plates and two bowls from the cabinet and set them on the counter next to the stove. "I think the soup is ready. Should I pour it into bowls?"

"Okay, but you might want to do it over the sink," Pepper suggested. He took her advice and soon had the soup divided up. "Ready to try a turn at the grill?" she asked as she deposited a sandwich on each plate.

"Sure," he said with a grin. Adam took the spatula from Pepper and carefully placed the remaining two sandwiches on the griddle's hot surface. He'd been watching the clock, so he was pretty sure two minutes would work. Soon he'd flipped them and the second sandwiches joined the others as Pepper finished setting two places at the end of the island counter. She'd grabbed a glass of water for her spot and refilled his glass of ginger ale.

Adam made sure the burners were all turned off and returned the last of the ingredients to their places. He carefully set the plates in their proper spots, and Pepper and he sat down. Adam looked at the soup spoon Pepper had set to the right side of each spot and held his up for a closer look.

"That's a real soup spoon. It's flatter and shallower than a table spoon, so the liquid will cool faster if it's too hot."

His eyebrows went up in understanding. "That makes perfect sense. There's so much I really didn't pay a lot of attention to from inside Bruce's head."

"I imagine there was a lot going on without worrying about tableware," Pepper joked as she blew over her soup.

"Plenty," Adam confirmed. He took a bite of grilled cheese and chewed slowly as he really tasted the toasted bread and the gooey filling before he swallowed. "Now, this I remember, but not nearly so intense. Everything sensory that came through Bruce was muted to a certain extent, but I still have most of it in my head, despite the fuzzy edges."

"Well, time does that as well, so you may not be missing as much as you think," she suggested.

Adam shrugged and smiled at her, "Thanks for doing this, Pepper. Today has been so crazy and over-the-top. Doing something normal like sitting here and talking really helps me feel grounded again. I mean it."

She tilted her head and smiled back at him, "You're very welcome. This helps me feel grounded, too." She wasn't about to worry him with what had gone down in New York since Thursday morning, but he'd somehow turned out to be unexpectedly good company on a night they were both missing other people. That was just as well since she'd never have heard the end of it if she'd clobbered him with the bat.

The two continued on in companionable silence as they concentrated on their food for a bit then slipped into conversation again. She told him about growing up in California and wishing it would be cold enough to snow, so she could live out the Campbell's Soup commercials that showed the perfect family making a snowman. Bruce had made snow men a few times, and Adam remembered that. There were other kids in base housing in Dayton, so he recalled snow forts and snowball fights, too, both on base and during holiday vacations at their grandparents' house. Bruce had been small and worn glasses, so he'd been a snowball maker rather than one of the bigger kids who'd thrown them. That really hadn't mattered to Bruce since he had just loved being included.

Pepper looked at Adam across the island countertop as they finished the last of the grilled cheese. "It's amazing how much you can remember despite most of it being vicarious," she said.

"Some parts are really vivid, but others are pretty foggy. I remember Jennifer and Rich really well. In fact, I got to meet Rich this morning before we worked on the bridge. That's the only time Bruce or I've ever been taller than him."

"Well, you all were like rock stars on the news, and it's likely Ross is going to be investigated over the issues with the dam upstream. Good PR for the good guys for once."

"That's a step in the right direction." He passed her a handful of extra paper napkins from down the counter to wipe the butter and crumbs off her fingers.

"Hey, have you given any thought yet to where you're going to live?" she asked.

"I'm supposed to stay in my own dimension for thirty days to see if exposure to here has any ill effects on me."

"If you're feeling okay in the morning, I imagine the brain trust will have to rethink that unless this is just some stalling tactic."

Adam shrugged and stared at his hands. He knew she was right about the stalling, but he also understood why they were doing it. "Tasha brought up that there needs to be paperwork and I have to be documented. I want to keep my name, but she said that would be more of a challenge than coming up with a new identity."

"Well, that subject is her thing, so I wouldn't worry too much about it just yet." The less Pepper heard about parts of it, the better. She'd help where she could when they needed her.

"Tasha said I could live here with them in the guest bedroom, but with the baby coming . . . I don't know. I think they're going to need some space."

"Hey, almost a third of this floor and more of the one below us is 'undeveloped,' so don't worry about finding space. We could have something very livable in a week or really outstanding in less than a month for you."

"Wow, that sounds amazingly nice, but are you really sure you'd want me here?"

Pepper laughed at him. "You've earned it. What's one more rider on the insurance policy? I think Bruce and Nat would feel better having you nearby, too, but I believe you're right about them needing to do some remodeling before the baby gets here."

"Yah, and I really don't want to be underfoot either. I'll probably still be spending plenty of time in my dimension. I'm supposed to be working out a training schedule with Stephen Strange, so that may keep me pretty busy. I don't want to cause anything bad to happen, so I need to be able to use the mystic arts properly. At some point, I'm going to visit 'Anna, but that's further into the future."

"I've heard of Stephen Strange, but who is Anna?" Pepper asked with a raised eyebrow.

He grinned and blushed a bit as he balled a paper napkin up in his hands. "It's kind of a weird story."

"I'm up for weird," she encouraged him.

"Okay then. After we finished up with the Roebling this morning and I gave Bruce back control, I returned home to my space, and I was feeling kind of frustrated with not hearing from Stephen. To be honest, I was sulking and took a walk along the edge of my reality, which is where it meets a kind of void. It looks a lot like a beach our family used to visit up on the Great Lakes. Bruce used to skip stones on the wave tops with the cousins, so I picked up a good flat rock and just hurled it past where I could see into the fog, but it never hit the water. No splash. The stone just disappeared into the fog. After that, a friend of mine did show up, so we talked and then Nyxianna came out of the mist to return the stone." Adam suddenly wasn't sure what to say and flushed deep red.

Pepper did her best not to embarrass him too much, but she certainly wanted to know more. "So, what does she look like?"

Adam scratched the back of his head nervously. "She has long hair that's sort of blonde, almost white. She's about the same size as Tasha, but her skin is a goldish bronze color. Her eyes are a blue-gray. The woman was actually pretty scary. She called me a little god in a little realm and warned me that I shouldn't throw rocks. I apologized at least three times, and then we were both curious and we just sort of connected mentally. Somehow, we clicked into sync. I could tell she was reading me, and she shared a little about herself and warned me to be careful because the earth was attracting attention we didn't want. She'd heard of Hulk and knew I'd beaten Loki. Then she left but gave me the rock back and now it has sort of a locator or homing function worked into it. Just after that, Bruce and Stephen showed up, and we got some things hashed out before they left. Once they were gone, I pulled out the stone and thought about her, and she came back and we just talked for a long while. Eventually, she punched me in the arm and told me I was physically real. I don't think it actually sunk in until she told me. I just didn't think it was possible." Adam went quiet and let out a long sigh as he thought of her.

"So, I'm guessing you did more than talk that second time," Pepper noted perceptively. Adam looked up briefly from his hands to make eye contact with the business woman and nodded. He didn't want to say more, and she didn't push him. He wasn't embarrassed by 'Anna and his behavior, they were both consenting adults after all, but he was still trying to make sense of how quickly and how perfectly they fit together. He hadn't asked for this. He'd been perfectly happy, at peace with his situation. Twenty-four hours ago, he wouldn't have considered a relationship even a remote possibility. Now, his pulse was starting to race as he thought about everything he might be able to do. Lord, how had Raven put it? _Your brother gets the girl, the family, and the happiness._ There was no reason now that he couldn't have what he longed for too.

Adam looked up from his hands and the napkin he'd been worrying. "Hey, I told you it was weird. Anyway, at some point I want to see where 'Anna comes from, but we'll have to wait and see how things go."

Pepper nodded, "It's good to make connections and have goals. My unsolicited advice to you that I've not always followed myself is keep your options open until you know you're sure about committing. Get to know people. Don't be afraid to try new things."

Adam nodded. "You're right." After a few moments, he gathered up the empty plates and bowls and took them to the sink. Pepper thought she understood Bruce's choice of "unsophisticated" to describe his brother, but she didn't see that as a negative. She hoped he'd have time to take in all the experiences he'd missed and really savor them. "Unless you plan to spend the night here, we'd better get you home and to bed. I'll clean up the rest here."

"You're sure? It won't take that long."

"Let's see you make a portal to the right place," she challenged him.

Adam chuckled. "I hope I've got this. Friday, please ignore the anomaly," he cautioned the Interface. Adam picked the same spot in the foyer they had used earlier. He placed the sling-ring on his left hand and gathered the air and pulled on the fire as he made the circle with his right hand. The sparks started off green but shifted to yellow and orange as they formed a widening portal. He held it to a modest six-foot size and stabilized it. The lodge's grounds with a gorgeous orange, pink, and purple sunset over the lake was on the other side.

"Oh my gosh, it's the lake," Pepper breathed as she stood just behind him and stared at the scene through the portal. She'd picked up the Harry Potter book to give him. He took the book and offered her his hand. "I don't know, Adam," she said as her eyes grew big with surprise at the thought of crossing the threshold into a different world.

"Don't be afraid to try new things," Adam echoed her with a humorous cock of an eyebrow.

"I said I don't take my own advice," Pepper countered.

He continued to hold out his hand. "I'm not taking a 'No' because you'll be missing my thank you if you don't trust me and check this out."

Pepper rolled her eyes, but she finally took his hand. "All right. Friday, I'll be right back. No alarms," she ordered. "You and Bruce have the warmest hands," she noted.

Adam nodded and led her through the portal and into the balmy evening air. The lodge was lit up like a fairyland with green and gold up-lighting, and frogs and insects were peeping, croaking, and trilling. Fireflies danced and pulsed their tiny lights in the fields and yard. The darkening sky and the multicolored sunset over the lake were vivid and full of depth as the stars became visible. Pepper studied the sky, turning and looking for familiar constellations and not finding them. "Where are we?" she asked.

"In a dimension that's not too far from Earth and its reality: that's my best guess," he said. "Finding out is on the to-do list."

"You made this?"

"I didn't know it was real at the time, but yes, I made what you see and hear and feel."

"And smell," she added as she breathed in the mix of odors from the lake and the grassy meadow and the woods beyond it.

"Look up," he said, pointing to the eastern sky where the stars were most prominent. A bright blue meteor and then another streaked across the sky and disappeared. The tall woman smiled with delight as she watched the show. They counted over two dozen before the small shower was done.

"Thank you, Adam. This is all really beautiful," Pepper told him and she squeezed his hand. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Oh, yah. I'm home. And you?"

"Looking forward to reading in bed and a quiet night's sleep."

"I'll bring Tasha and Bruce through at 8:30am. Same spot."

"Sweet dreams then," she said. Pepper gave his hand a final squeeze and turned back to the portal and stepped through into the apartment.

Adam dismissed the spell, which closed the portal. He walked across the field and toward the woods before passing through the wall into his version of Bruce and Natasha's apartment. It seemed weird for a moment that Pepper wasn't there and everything was so quiet. "Finally, the right place," he said with a yawn and headed to the bathroom to clean up before crawling into bed.

((o))

Natasha quietly slipped the cufflink she'd found in the seat cushion into Bruce's hand as they listened to Tony reenact most of the Q&A they'd missed all the way back to the hotel and all the way up the elevator ride to the top floor. "When does this conference meet again? Next year? We're going to have to come back. The organizers said they wanted an update."

"I think it's in St. Louis or Philadelphia next year, then it's somewhere further west," Bruce told him. "Are you sure you don't want to be a professor, Tony? It sounds like the teaching bug has bitten you pretty hard," he teased.

"Maybe as a guest lecturer or someone who doesn't have to do the paperwork part," Tony said as he stroked his chin. "We could probably use Skype or, hey, a holographic set up if I can't be onsite."

"I can see it now," Natasha deadpanned, "Professor in a Box does Doctor in a Box." Bruce snorted and Tony barely kept his face straight.

"Do I have you on payroll yet, Ms. Romanoff? You keep coming up with these great ideas, and I'll have to put you on retainer," the engineer quipped just before the elevator doors opened onto the hotel's top floor.

Luckily, Clint, Mel, and several others were already back in the common area to help celebrate and unwind, so Bruce shook Tony's hand and gave him a quick embrace before they excused themselves. No one even batted an eye, except for Clint, that Natasha was there. He pointed a finger at her from across the room and mouthed, "Behave." She stuck her tongue out at him in reply. Bruce laughed at them both and grabbed her hand as they retreated back down the hall to his suite.

"If we didn't have an early morning . . ." Bruce began.

"We wouldn't be behaving," she finished for him. "Let's get cleaned up and cuddle the night away."

"When did you become clairvoyant?"

"Just becoming more fluent in Banner," Natasha said as she slipped out of her heels.

Bruce hung his jacket and slacks back up in the closet and handed Nat a hanger for her dress since there was no way he was figuring out how to get it to stay on one. They moved comfortably around each other as they went through their evening routines. He thought about putting his pajama pants and a t-shirt on, but he was quite warm without them. Natasha was finishing up in the bathroom, and she stood in front of the full-length mirror looking at herself. Bruce stepped in close behind her and kissed her right shoulder. She leaned back into him, and he reached around her to stroke her stomach. "You're almost unbearably beautiful, cynpyra. No, you're not showing yet, but your smell is changing."

"How?" she asked with an amused smile as she enjoy the feel of his hands and the rest of him pressed into her back. She liked that he'd called her his spouse.

"I'm not picking up on the smoky undertone that's normally there in the background. The citrus is less pronounced, but the pineapple is really coming through, a bit of iron, and some new things. Rosemary and something sweet—I thought it was a fruit, but now it's like a bloom from a purple butterfly bush. I think it's the baby, but it comes and goes."

Natasha turned her head so she could see his face. "Did I mention Vis thinks there may be twins?"

Bruce opened his eyes in mild surprise. "I don't think you did. Twins aren't unheard of on my side," he noted. "It wouldn't be the first time a second baby was missed on an early sonogram either."

"Well, they'll have another chance to get it right tomorrow."

"Would it bother you if there were two? It's not going to be comfortable either way."

She snorted, "As long as it's not puppies."

"Hey, I kind of like puppies," he teased.

She reached back and gave him a quick tweak in the ribs. "Get in bed, Banner!"

"Ouch! I'm going, you beautiful, sadistic pincher," he laughed as she chased him into the bedroom. Luckily, the bed was cleared off already because he dove under the covers without really looking. Natasha turned off the lights. She seriously considered grabbing his foot to see if he'd jump, but she decided to behave herself and slipped under the covers. He playfully grabbed her and pulled her close, molding himself around her as she rolled into his arms. "Ah, there's the cold feet I know and love," he teased.

Natasha kissed him on the mouth, "Mmm, minty fresh. No Gamma breath."

"Gamma breath?! You can taste it?"

She gave a low chuckle, "You are so gullible."

Bruce snorted, "Hulk halitosis, ri-i-ight."

"Oh, good one," she purred and they both laughed.

"So, carrying twins doesn't scare you a bit?" Bruce asked. "Statistically, it makes early births and a cesarean section more likely."

"Let's not worry about that until we have to. I would definitely be a bigger beached whale with two than with one, but it does sort of get it over with so there aren't the single-child issues, which you already know about."

"You'd be willing to have a second child?"

"Come here so I can head butt you, Doc." She reached up and pulled his head close so she could kiss his forehead and stroke his hair. "I'll take what comes, but this is all new territory for both of us. I would say I want three or four or however many, but it all is going to depend on how this pregnancy goes. I'm in good physical shape, but let's wait and see. One little Banner may be all we can handle."

"True. We don't need to be the Von Trapps," he joked.

Natasha groaned, "No way, Bruce. But that reminds me, have you given any thought to names?"

Bruce sighed, "Please not Robert or Brian or Thaddeus or Ross." He thought a moment then chuckled, "However, Adam and Tony have both self-nominated."

Natasha laughed with him, "I bet Tony was serious."

"At least half way."

"Well, Adam Anthony isn't bad."

Bruce groaned, "A.A. Banner as in Alcoholics Anonymous Banner. No. I like the name Adam, but I think it would get confusing. He was mostly joking. Anthony paired with something else would be okay."

"It would give Tony such a big head, but leave it on the list for now. Hmm, Anthony . . . Philip. Philip Anthony? Steven Anthony? Anthony Thor?"

"No. What about Clinton Anthony?"

"No, Clint hates his name. That's why there's no Clint Junior. Why not Bruce?"

"I don't hate my name, but the legacy is so mixed. I'm not sure we want to saddle a son with it. Okay, how about Anthony Nicholas or Nikolas or Nikolai?"

"Not bad. Put it on the list."

"Alexander? Alexei?" he suggested. Natasha shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

"How about one for a girl?" she asked. "Rebecca seems like an obvious choice."

Bruce leaned forward and kissed her cheek, "That's very sweet of you to suggest, but there's a heavy load that comes with it, too."

"It could be a second name or we could call her by a second name like you."

"Okay then, Rebecca Margaret? Rebecca Lauren? Rebecca May? Rebecca Natalina?"

"No, no family names are bad enough, let's not go down the self-naming route."

"Stephanie Rebecca?"

"No, 'stuffy Stephie.' I like Antonia or Alexandra better or even Nichole. We're getting too tied up in friends' names."

"Rebecca Grace?" he asked.

"Hmm, that has possibilities. How about Rebecca Renée or Renata?

"If you don't mind it getting shortened to Ree-Ree," Bruce joked.

"Very funny. Bella is pretty popular or something more unisex like Adrien or Robin or Avery or Taylor." Bruce sighed dramatically. "We really don't have to decide tonight," Natasha concluded.

"Good, because otherwise I'm going to start in on Harry Potter characters: Luna, Cedric, Hermione, Neville, Hedwig, Albus, Cho Chang, Hagrid . . . stop me."

"Lily is nice. Andromeda is sort of classical and dramatic," Natasha added.

"Put them on the list. Good night," Bruce yawned and settled in on his side.

Natasha made certain the alarm on her phone was set for early enough and snuggled into her spot as the big spoon along Bruce's back. She snaked her hand under his arm and rested it over his heart. He was already breathing deeply, and she soon joined him in a well-earned sleep.

((o))

As he slipped into unconsciousness, Bruce immediately knew Adam was too deep in sleep for him to bother with anything less than an emergency, so he let his dreams take him where they would. He found himself hiking in some foothills below a range of mountains. He followed a well-worn path that paralleled a stream and led through a thicket of smaller conifers that gave out as he reached the shore of a lake he didn't think he'd ever seen before. Bruce thought he heard some sort of bird take to its wings, but he didn't see anything move except the ripples kicked up by the wind on the water. He was on the uphill end of the lake, so Bruce kept following the path down and around the water and away from the mountains. The lake was roughly oval-shaped until he eventually reached the far end, which turned out to be a dam. As he got closer, he realized it was not beaver-made or earthen work, but a modern construction that included some sort of hydroelectric power station. His stomach listed as he looked over the edge at the spillway below and saw someone was down at the bottom near the much wider stream that pooled beyond the dam.

For a moment, Bruce was reminded of the security guard he'd met years ago in New Jersey when Hulk had crashed through the ceiling of the warehouse the fellow was guarding. The old man had given Bruce clothing and loaned him the ancient motorcycle that got him to Manhattan just in time to join forces with his teammates for the Battle of New York. Bruce had been balanced on a knife's edge while weighing what to do, and the old man had given him good advice. "Your heart has already decided; the rest of you will follow." How right he'd been! It was several days later when the motorcycle was found miraculously intact. After a few minor repairs, Bruce had returned it. "Just like I told you, Son," the aged fellow quipped as he pocketed the keys, "you've found where you belong." Bruce wasn't about to argue with that.

Almost as if he'd sensed Bruce, the gray-clad figure below looked up and beckoned him to take a metal staircase down and join him. As he drew nearer, Bruce saw the man was untangling fishing poles and setting them on the ground. When Bruce stepped off the stairs and onto the bank near the man, he knew this wasn't the same person, but he still looked oddly familiar in his utilitarian gray uniform. The only things that weren't gray were the green baseball cap perched on his full head of silver hair and his large hazel-gold eyes. Bruce guessed the guy was old enough to retire, but the hand he offered Bruce to shake was strong and steady, and his eyes were lively with curiosity and intelligence. "Hello, Bruce, it's nice to finally meet you!"

"Hi, you know me, but I don't think I know you." He knew this was a dream, but Bruce thought he might as well play along.

"We have mutual friends. I'm what passes for a maintenance and grounds keeper here."

"Where or what is 'here'?" Bruce said gesturing around him.

"It's a reserve power supply though it's been used for other things. Right now, all is quiet, so I'm fishing. Please join me." He offered Bruce a pole and the younger man took it, examining the line and the lure.

"What are you fishing for?" Bruce asked.

"Trout mostly, but I get the occasional catfish. You've been fishing plenty of times before haven't you?"

"Yah, with my Uncle Morris, but it was almost always on the lake rather than below the dam."

"Well, this is pretty much like fishing from the shore. Look for the quiet spots around the deep pool here at the bottom. I'm not serious enough to use bait, just the lures." He moved a few steps down the bank and made a side-arm cast to land the neon yellow jig across the pool in an eddy of the current as he'd described. Bruce played with the reel for a moment to determine what needed to be held and released before he took his first cast. His green feathered jig landed near the other one with a small splash. He slowly reeled it back, raising and lowering the rod to create a bobbing motion so that the lure hopped and skipped over rocks at the bottom of the pool. The two men continued to cast and reel in their lines.

"So, you know my name, but I didn't get yours," Bruce prompted.

"Your brother calls me Peter," the man said with a rye smile.

"That's appropriate for a fisherman. Who else do we mutually know?"

"You're family. I knew your father though we didn't get along well. I remember your grandparents and your aunts. I was thinking about your Uncle Morris just now, too. How's Jennifer doing?"

"Well, I've kept her busier than I'd like, but she still does a fair amount of her firm's pro bono work. Sir, you seem very familiar, but I still can't figure out how I might know you."

"Ask your brother when you see him," he said noncommittally. Peter pulled a white handkerchief from his shirt pocket, took off his hat, and wiped his brow. Bruce noted his hair curled just like Adam's and his.

Bruce continued to steal fascinated glances between casts. He knew he was dreaming, but somehow it seemed important that he place the man. The way Peter tilted his head as he listened and the lopsided smile made Bruce think of Adam. He was pretty sure this wasn't his brother transformed by age and imagination, but they all had to be related somehow.

"Where are my manors?" the older man said after a bit. "I nearly forgot. I understand congratulations are in order to you and your fiancé. Well, to be accurate, congratulations on both the engagement and the pregnancy. Those are two major mile stones. I know your mother would have been very proud of you."

"You knew my mom?" the younger man asked.

"Yes, I did. She was a lovely woman . . . so smart and funny. She had a really fine singing voice, too. Her death was a horrible loss. I wish I could have done something for her . . . for you."

Bruce set his fishing rod down and approached Peter. He laid a hand on his shoulder and firmly turned the older man so he could see his face. "Who are you, Peter? You know me and my family. You look like family to me."

"I was hoping Adam would have brought you," Peter said, averting his gaze. "He could explain better than I can."

"He's way too tired to be dreaming here in my head, at least not for a good while."

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to meet you, Bruce. Having a break like this from my responsibilities is so rare, and you did come here on your own. If this part of the cycle would just last longer . . . we could really talk." He set his rod down, and took his hat off once again and wiped the perspiration from his face. That's when Bruce recognized a distinctly bitter smell along with the saltiness of the sweat.

"Are you all right? I think we need to get you out of the sun," Bruce suggested. The older man nodded. Bruce picked up both poles and followed the groundskeeper back up to the base of the dam where there was a shaded area with a couple of benches in front of a steel door. However, Peter didn't go inside. He sat down on one of the benches and pulled a small cooler out from underneath the seat. There were bottles of water and ice inside, and Peter handed one to Bruce who had propped the fishing poles against the wall near the door.

"Please sit, Son. My golden hour is almost up. Your brother will have to fill in the details later. I need to tell you a few things." Bruce opened up the bottle and sat down next to him on the other end of the same bench. "I knew your father well. From the inside out, in fact," he said with a humorless chuckle after he took a drink of water. Bruce noted he was still sweating and there was a pronounced tremor to his hand. The bitter smell of the Gamma was getting more pronounced as well. "Your father was ill and absolutely refused all help. You are not like him, Bruce. You have your issues, but they're rooted in how you've been ill-treated, not in a sociopathic disregard for others. I know you are going to worry about becoming like him more and more as you yourself become a father." Peter placed his left hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Don't let your fears drive your behavior. There will be complications and troubles—there always are—but listen to your heart and not your fears. Listen to the people who love you. Trust your brother. Trust your partner."

Bruce nodded, "I do. I'll try, but how do you know I'm not like him?"

"You're not full of hate and fear, Bruce. You feel so many other things—good, bad, the whole spectrum—just like you should. Anger has its uses. It kept you going for a long while. You harnessed it, but now you know that's no way to live. It blinds you to what will truly sustain you. Don't let anger or fear control your actions. In one sense, anger is just like the Gamma: it's a tool at your disposal. By itself, it's not good nor bad. It's your intentions when you use it for the right or wrong reason that are good or bad." He patted Bruce's shoulder and rose to his feet. "I'm sorry. I have to go now. I can't avoid my responsibilities."

"No, wait," Bruce implored him, but the gray-haired man was already behind the door before Bruce could even stand up. He scrubbed his face with his hands. Why the hell couldn't he identify this guy? Bruce thought about following him behind the door, but he doubted he'd find what he wanted.

"Here he is, Big G, below the dam," croaked a harsh voice overhead. Bruce looked up in time to see a flutter of dark wings as a sizable raven landed on the opposite bench. "Pardon me and please stay put, Doc." Bruce didn't have time to respond before Adam in full Hulk mode landed a few yards away. Bruce wondered if it was kosher to use both the words _graceful_ and _thud_ to describe the same action. It didn't matter because it fit the way Hulk arrived. "He looks okay to me," the bird surmised as he studied Bruce.

"Yes, I'm fine, thanks. You're Raven, right?" This dream was just getting more and more bazaar.

"At your service, Friend-of-Thor. My apologies for trespassing."

Adam had shrunk back to his normal proportions. He was dressed in a charcoal gray version of the uniform pants without a shirt or shoes. He had an unmistakable look of relief on his face. "Raven, this is my brother Bruce. Bruce, this is Raven of Asgard."

"Nice to meet you," Bruce said.

"Likewise," the bird responded.

"You have my permission to eat your fill of snails, periwinkles, or whatever you find edible in my tide pools, Raven. Try not to make yourself sick. Thanks for helping me."

"Anytime, G. Nice to make your acquaintance, Dr. Banner," Raven croaked, and he was off in a whoosh of dark wings, and he quickly disappeared over the lip of the dam.

"Why do I feel like I've been ratted out by a feathered spy, and I don't even know what for?" Bruce complained.

"Because you were," Adam said with a chuckle. "I'd planned on introducing you to Peter after we'd had a chance to talk first."

"So that was 'The Gamma'?"

"Yes, but he's a lot more than that. Sit down and let's talk, Bruce. Got any more waters?" Bruce pulled the cooler back out from under the bench and handed Adam a bottle of water.

"I guess your friend won't mind."

"Doubt it," Adam remarked. "We're still in your dream."

"You really should be in bed. I'm afraid you're going to find out what it means to feel sick and tired tomorrow," Bruce scolded.

Adam drank down half his water, "I should say the same thing to you, but we're in the Dreamscape, which is akin to the Psychic Plane. Our bodies aren't here; they're in our beds sleeping. This won't tax either of us more than a dream unless we get really worked up, but it does make it harder to stay focused. In my humble opinion, the more important question is whether or not you'll remember this tomorrow."

Bruce shook his head as he rested his elbows on his knees. "All I can give you is a resounding 'Maybe?' because I have no idea. Every time I think there is no way I'll forget, I end up staring at myself in the mirror knowing something important is missing."

"I'm hoping that knowing me in the real world has removed the mental blocks, or if it's because of some scar tissue, the lack of an actual Hulk-out will resolve the issue. Either way, I'll just tell you again if we need to do that." Adam leaned back on the bench and finished his drink before he went on. "You know, I find the contrast between how you and I imagine this place fascinating."

"How so?" Bruce asked. "I still don't even know where we are exactly."

"We're where the Gamma resides. In reality, the radiation is sequestered in your long bones and a few other places, especially where the blood cells are produced. I imagined this place as a cave in the Bone Mountains. I traveled a long way down through the underground passages until I reached a cave with a dragon imprisoned in it behind cold-iron bars and stalactite columns with a little pool inside the cell. In contrast, this doesn't seem much like a prison, it's just a remote place with a hydroelectric dam and a power station. Oh, and a cooler of endless water bottles. Did you notice there are always a dozen of them when you open it up?"

"No, that's kinda cool though. You're saying the man, uh, Peter was a dragon in your scenario? Wow. When I first saw him, I thought he was the security guard who let me borrow his motorcycle after you made a Hulk-shaped hole in his warehouse's roof."

Adam chuckled, "That stupid SHIELD jet blew off what was left of your pants when I tore it apart. I was so mad, but the fall took a good while, so I pretty much calmed down and avoided landing someplace more populated."

"You're able to remember this now?"

"Some parts are getting clearer—maybe because we're dreaming. I'm pretty sure I beat the snot out of Thor twice that day. I . . . I know I chased Natasha. I may have . . . I knocked her into a bulkhead." He looked at Bruce with alarm. "I hurt her, didn't I?"

Bruce turned and put his hand on Adam's arm. "We hurt her and we scared her. You chose not to hit her when she was down. She was able to walk, well, run away from it. Loki's staff and the Mind Gem were working on everyone. If Thor hadn't slammed you through another bulkhead, you might have calmed down on your own. We've apologized for all this several dozen times over, Adam. Natasha has long since forgiven us. The jet pilot apologized to us and accepted ours. Thor and I even signed his helmet. Everything is as okay as a mess of a situation like that can get." Bruce moved closer and put his arm around Adam, rubbing his shoulders.

Adam gazed up at the clouds, swallowing hard. His voice was rough when he did speak. "When you think about getting memories back, you think about them being good things, but that really isn't the case most of the time."

"You know what, every time I remember something about you, Adam, it's a good thing. Those are the kind of memories we'll be making from here on, okay?"

Adam leaned his head back against Bruce's arm and turned his head so he looked him in the eye. "Okay. I trust you. But I'm new at this, and all I seem to do is screw up."

"And that's okay. You're learning from it. That's part of what makes us human." Bruce smiled at Adam. He thought about how he'd gathered him up as a munchkin and just held him when they were both tired. There had only been a few months when they could do that in these mutual dreams, but Bruce found he really missed it. Now, Adam was looking after him. "So, what were you going to tell me about our mutual acquaintance called Peter? For me he's a fisherman, but for you he's a dragon."

"As weird as that sounds, it gets weirder, but this isn't just a strange detail from a scenario I imagined. Who and what he is could be really important for you to know for your children's sake."

"Like, in the future, you mean?"

"No, like right now. Think, why does he know so much about us? Why does he look like us?"

"I already guessed that we're related, but I have no idea how. A missing cousin? I know this is a dream, so it doesn't have to make sense, but how would a relative be here and take care of where the Gamma is?"

Adam pulled back and straightened up, "Listen, you and I aren't the first set of twins in the Banner family. We're also not the only ones that weren't born together."

Bruce looked at him and his eyes widened. "He's like you, isn't he?"

Adam nodded. "You can guess . . ."

"An uncle . . . he's our uncle. Holy . . ." Bruce put his hands to his face for a few moments then leaned back. "Is he sane? Living in our father's head had to be an absolute hell."

"He seems pretty stable, considering what he's been through."

"How did Peter get out of his head?"

"He says he escaped when Dad died. He tried to break their bond before, but he couldn't manage it until then."

"How did he get here then?"

"He says he stuck around to see how you were doing, but he got caught up with the radiation you absorbed during the accident. I thought he was the Gamma itself. You know what kind of pain we experienced and how that affected us. He's acted like a living battery, gathering the radiation and storing it. I thought there was some intelligence behind what your body was doing and how it was healing. We were sort of working parallel to each other on similar goals to help you stabilize and repair. When you use the energy up so there isn't an over flow, he's in a human form, but as the Gamma recharges, he has a Hulk form and then the dragon when he's fully charged."

"Is he in pain?"

"Some of it looked painful, like it does for us, but he says he's happy. He has a purpose and wants to continue being useful. I tried to see what I could do to help him, and he told me to leave him alone, he didn't need 'fixing' because he was finally happy to serve a purpose."

Bruce sat quietly and tried to get his head around this new information bomb. He'd suspected Adam's situation wasn't completely unique, but he'd not thought to look that hard at his own family tree. Part of his father's diagnosis when he was institutionalized was paranoid schizophrenia. He heard voices. This made sense. Yet, was he already mentally ill without having a twin in his head or had the condition driven him insane? Even with just the small bit of contact with Peter to go on, Bruce's gut said his father would have been sociopathic with or without a twin. God, what had Peter gone through? No wonder a quiet place and a purpose were an improvement for him. He turned to Adam, "So you're the upgrade?"

"I'm at least 2.0, but there's no way to tell. As far as I know, I'm the first one who's been able to cross over into reality, but that's because I had the right combination of circumstances, talents, and resources. To bring this back to what I wanted you to think about, we may soon be dealing with upgrade 3.0."

Bruce nodded. He'd already thought along similar lines though it had only been an intellectual exercise before a child had seemed possible. He was supposed to be the end of his line, but that wasn't the way things had gone. Now, it was obvious he and Natasha had rolled the dice and his family's mixed genetic heritage would likely come into play.

"Please say something, Bruce," Adam implored. "I'm not on the inside anymore."

"We're not going to know anything until we have more data, and that won't come till tomorrow. I liked growing up with you in my head, but it's better having you independent and able to live your own life. Let's try not to worry about it until we know there's a problem." He sounded more confident than he felt, and his brother knew that was the case.

"Much easier said than done. I would have lived our shared life without complaining, but I agree, having my own autonomy is better, Bruce."

"I understand. Come on, let's go back to our beds. I'll see you bright and early."

"It already is," Adam groused, but he faded back to his physical body all the same.

Bruce took one more look around. The place seemed pleasant enough. It was quiet and peaceful with the stream splashing down the spillway as it pooled and then continued on down the stream bed, flowing to a lower valley. The lake above was calm and unspoiled. Maybe Peter's desire to stay here wasn't such a strange request. Bruce turned and stared at the door, but no one appeared, and he really didn't want to enter all that much. Carl Jung might have been disappointed in him, but Bruce already knew what archetypal bones he could unearth. Frankly, everyone was better off if he didn't disturb them or chase after shadows or dragons.

The more Bruce thought about it, however, he found he did want to talk to Peter. Just as he almost had his mind made up to enter the door into the dam, Bruce could tell he was waking up. There was no choice but to fade into consciousness little by little. He was on his back, and he could feel Natasha curled up under his left arm with her head resting on his chest. Without even thinking about it, he matched his breathing to hers. Soon it hit him, he could remember Adam and Peter and everything that happened at the dam in his dream.

Despite his excitement over remembering, fear started to knot up his gut. Bruce reminded himself there were no problems yet. Speculation was all there was so far. He breathed in Natasha's sweet mix of aromas and sifted through it to find the two new ones. He reached down and gently stroked her stomach, and she cuddled into him. At this moment, everything in the world Bruce needed to be happy was right there in the bed with him, and he knew he would fight to the death if anyone or anything tried to hurt or take them from him.

 **End Notes:** Any questions or comments? Please let me know. I hope I got most of the baby names worked in there. Let me know if I forgot your favorite and I'll get it worked in.

Just in case you missed them, I finished up the third installment of "Not Really Valentines" which you can find here on if you check my other works.

Next chapter we'll be in Nat's head and then it's time to go see Dr. Vining with Bruce in tow.


	59. Chapter 59

****Summary:**** Natasha dreams some weird stuff-like, really weird stuff about the future. She and Bruce wake up early, get a little competitive in bed, and end up going for a run. Adam joins them a little early and Tony brings breakfast. Earning that mature rating.

 ** **Notes:**** I'm serious, she dreams some really weird and possibly upsetting things. I'm not sure that it requires a warning, but it does involve a possible future that's not what anyone wants. Just brace yourself and enjoy some stuffed French toast or pastries and coffee or tea.

No, we won't get back to Dr. Vining's office yet. I should know better than to say I'll get to a certain point or part because it jinxes me every time.

Yes, folks, there is sex to be found here and more kissing than some people will want. I hope there is enough angst (if not action) to go around, too.

Thank you to the wonderful Autumn_Froste and EmilyGracie13 for keeping me on track (I hope). I added and revised parts, so any screw-ups, obvious or not, are mine. I also really appreciate the helpful feedback!

 **Chapter 59: All Kinds of Trouble**

Natasha felt like she'd been on a mission for most of the night. Her dreams had started with her being dropped into a sparsely populated area in a tropical region with the assignment of taking out some sort of lab. However, after she hacked her way through the undergrowth from the drop zone, the place had been abandon. Natasha had set the explosives anyway, but Coulson called her on her phone, which was now covered in hearts and Avengers stickers from the tower's gift shop. He told her to go pick up "the Big Guy," so she ran down hill, crashing through the underbrush until she burst onto an urban street. Time seemed to be running out!

Soon, she was following Bruce and little Prapti through the narrow alleyways to the ramshackle house at the edge of Kolkata. The physicist protectively held the little girl back as she nearly darted in front of a military vehicle. Bruce turned his back to the street and his eyes landed on Natasha. He froze as his pint-sized employer hurried across the road and disappeared through the shabby house's doorway.

"Bruce? Are you okay?" she asked him as she caught up. He looked at her suspiciously and backed away, eyes darting left and right looking for more threats. He dropped his medical bag and held his hands up defensively. God, she hated these sorts of dreams. They never ended well if she couldn't talk him down.

Bruce kept backing away from her. "Please, Miss, stay back! I don't want trouble. I don't want to hurt you."

She stood still and held up her hands, "It's okay, Bruce. It's me, Natasha." She heard the distinct sound of at least a dozen automatic weapons being cocked somewhere in the surrounding darkness: just what neither of them wanted to hear. "Guys, not helpful," she responded over her comm.

Bruce looked at her sadly. "I'm sorry." His brown eyes glowed green, and she rushed toward him, wrapping her arms around him as he clenched his fists, shuddered, and fell forward into her.

"Hold your fire!" she ordered. "It's okay, Bruce. Breathe. Try not to fight this. I've got you. We've done this before. No big deal." She expected him to continue the transition into Hulk, but instead of expanding into his giant green persona, he groaned as he shrank into someone smaller and younger. "Adam!?"

He was briefly fourteen, face contorted and dark green eyes full of fear and pain as she held his shoulders and lowered him to the ground. He reached for her and burst into tears. In a moment, he was swimming in Bruce's adult clothes as she pulled a smaller boy into her lap. "Tasha, help!" he sobbed in a small, frightened voice.

"I'm here. I want to help you. It'll be okay," she told the child. He seemed to have stabilized at about 30 pounds, burying his face in her left shoulder as she tried to sooth him. The toddler looked up at her, and she realized he wasn't Adam. His wavy hair was dark auburn and her own hazel-green eyes stared up at her, pleading for something.

"She needs help," he lisped, reaching soft little hands up to her face.

"Who? Who needs help?"

"S-i-s . . ."

Natasha blinked and her arms were empty. What the . . . ? She was sitting on a park bench at a playground in Central Park. Bruce was seated several feet to her right at the other end of the bench. It was a warm summer day with tension in the air as thick as the humidity. His hair was cut military short, especially on the sides, which were completely white, while the rest was mostly gray. Okay, this must be the future, she thought, and it wasn't good. The man was hunched over with his elbows braced on his thighs. They'd been arguing. He was playing with an odd pair of glasses, keeping his agitated hands busy. "I know you didn't really want me. Even back then you were just using me to get to the other guy. Admit it, I was always just a mark to you after all. I'm sure you'd rather I was the one who left and not Adam."

"No! That's never been the case," she said. Natasha reached out her hand to touch him, but Bruce jerked his arm quickly out of her reach as he stood up.

"You know what the worst part is, Natasha? We could have tried again. There was no reason not to! We would have made good parents." Natasha was at a total loss to understand what had happened. "That's really all I have to say," he replied in a broken voice as he turned and walked away from her.

"Bruce, wait!" she called after him as she quickly got to her feet to follow him, but he stepped around the corner of one of the play structures and was gone.

She felt like she'd been punched in the gut. Like her heart had just been ripped out. This was definitely a nightmare. Then her earpiece comm came online. "Tasha, where are you? Kate thinks she's located Bruce, but we have to move ASAP before the debris' orbit deteriorates any further or there won't be anything left," came Adam's deep voice.

Natasha looked around. What the . . . ? She was now in DC. "I'm right across Constitution Ave. NW from the statue of Albert Einstein."

Adam snorted, "Why didn't you say so, Love?" and a portal opened in front of her with a burst of green sparks. He held out a hand, and she saw his forearm was covered on one side with a white burn scar that started just shy of his fingers and continued up his wrist and arm till it disappeared under his dark gray sleeve. Natasha took his hand, and he pulled her through with an extra bit of _umph_ , so she landed almost on top of him as the portal closed. His extended sideburns were just starting to show some gray and his hair was pulled back into a herringbone or fishtail braid that ended just past his uniform's collar. She could surmise the scar on his arm was part of the same one that flowed like melted wax from just below his ear and ran down his neck into his collar. He raised a confident eyebrow and smirked before his arm snaked around her back to pull her in close for a very deep and possessive kiss on the mouth. _Fuck!_ She tried to push away. There was barely enough time to register they were on an advanced version of a quin-jet and they had an audience. Holy crap! He'd created a stable portal on a moving object. She was pretty certain that wasn't possible outside of a dream.

"Save it for an elevator, Gandalf," said a gruff voice from the jump seats toward the front.

"Fuck off, Howlett or Patch or whatever you're calling your carcass this week," Adam growled as he backed away from kissing her and flashed Logan a glowing green evil eye. Natasha finally extricated herself from his embrace. This was just getting too wild to believe.

"What I want to know is why I didn't get a kiss when you brought me through?" complained a lanky figure in a red and black hood seated by himself at the back of the plane.

"Shut up, Wade!" rang a small chorus of irritated voices.

"Stifle it, all of you, and show some respect," Tony said from the co-pilot's seat. She saw his hair was salt-and-pepper gray, but his beard was still black and impeccably trimmed. "There's a good chance we'll find some remains. No matter what you thought of Bruce Banner, he died a hero or none of us would be here."

"If suicide is heroic, then sure, he died a hero," Adam scoffed bitterly.

"You of all people, Banner, should show some restraint," the engineer growled back.

A more youthful voice interrupted. "He's high on the damned magic and Gamma again, Tony. You ask him to spell that many times, and he has to start mixing the two. It's like speed on top of tequila shots. You're going to bring out the mean drunk every time."

Adam fumed, "And you would know, Parker."

"Actually, Tony and your wife would know better than I do since they're the habitual binge drinkers."

Adam had Peter by the throat and pinned against the bulkhead before the younger man could even consider slinging a web.

"Adam, let Peter go and put him down. He didn't mean anything," Natasha said as she slipped around him to make eye contact.

He looked at her and blew out a very Hulk-like breath before lowering Peter back into his seat. The younger man was left red-faced and coughing, but otherwise he seemed to be okay. She could see that Adam was still mad, but his heart wasn't in the confrontation. As he turned, Tony was almost on his boot heels. "Parker's not wrong. Sit down or go home and we'll do this without you, Adam."

"You and I both know this is a waste of time, Stark. The ship blew up shortly after the collective spat me out and integrated him instead. The plan worked for Bruce. You think he was being 'heroic', but I was there. I know he wanted to die. I felt it happen." What Adam didn't say is he was the one who wanted to die more. The invasion had started on the far side of the galaxy and ravaged Asgard's protected territories first. When Nix fell, it took his wife and son from him. He'd escaped to raise the alarm in the other realms and organize a defense and counter attack. He was already dead inside. Why couldn't Bruce have let him deliver the fatal blow? Revenge would have at least brought him some closure.

"Well, maybe the rest of us would like to make sure!" Tony hissed. The last thing we need is something crawling out of that debris or a corpse getting harvested for cloning or bioweapons. You're not the only one hurting. We all lost people we loved."

"Like I wouldn't trade every bit of power and magic I have to bring just one of them back," Adam spat.

Natasha felt a hand on her shoulder carefully pulling her out from between the two arguing men. "Have a seat, Red," Logan advised. "This has been simmering for a long time. Wouldn't want to miss the show." She sat down in the seat next to Logan. This dream was just getting weirder and weirder. He had on a dark brown tech uniform with burnt orange accents she didn't recognize, but at least he looked and sounded like the same old Logan. After a moment, he wrinkled his nose and eyed her with new interest, clearly puzzled by something. "If you're not Natasha Romanoff-Banner, now is the time to say something, Sweetheart," he said with a low growl.

She didn't try to control her expression of puzzled surprise. "Who would I be? But, we're not married yet . . . uh, anymore." She could tell that was wrong for the dream's context by the look on his face. She would probably wake up when he gutted her. Natasha had certainly dreamed that scenario before.

Logan was quickly on his feet, but he kept an eye on her as he separated Adam and Tony. "If you two jerks would stop your pity party, there is something more important going on here." The sorcerer gave Tony one last glare before he turned to listen to Logan. "That may not be your wife, Banner." Everyone's attention quickly focused on Natasha. For a dream, this was getting pretty intense.

"Stay still," Adam said in combination with a subtle hand gesture, and a feeling of calm seemed to come over the entire cabin. Natasha couldn't move from her seat as he stepped closer and touched a golden artifact hanging from around his neck. There was a flash of green light and then everything seemed to vanish except for the two of them. She still couldn't move from whatever she was seated upon. Adam squatted down so that he was at her eyelevel. His dark green eyes were so much more weary and sad than she had seen them before. "Where do you think you are, Tasha?" he asked in that quiet, calm voice.

"I'm dreaming one of the strangest and most vivid dreams I've ever had."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Please tell me what day it is."

"Saturday, February 13, 2016."

Adam stood up and wrapped his arms around his middle as he paced away from her, thinking hard about what to do. He finally turned back to face her, and she could move again. He'd made up his mind. This was going to be their one shot at changing things. "Natasha, I want you to keep thinking this is a dream when you go back, but I have a question and a couple of favors to ask of you."

"Do I get to ask you any questions?" she shot back.

"That depends. The common thinking is the less you remember about what you've seen and heard here, the better," Adam warned. "The more you learn, the more I have to wipe."

"Then let me ask, why is that the case?" Natasha challenged him. She wasn't at all fond of the idea of having her mind manipulated.

He gave her a hard look before he continued. "We're dealing with a lapse in time. It's sort of like a hiccup or a bubble that's working its way along the time stream, and it's brought your astral or dream form with it. Time doesn't always run straightforward. On occasion, it twists and turns and makes a bubble. Yours is a tiny one, and for you it's happening inside a dream. Very shortly, it's going to pop, and you'll go back to your own place in the stream. Are you following me so far?"

"Yes, I can understand the concept whether I believe it or not."

"Good. There are basically three possible outcomes: all goes back to normal and you wake up with a story about a crazy dream to share with my brother, and life goes on and ends up here in roughly a decade. The second one is something changes and a different timeline is created that doesn't end up here. It would look like a fork in the time stream and both realities would exist. That's probably not a good thing. The other option is that something changes and completely alters the stream so that only a new path exists and this one ceases like it never happened." One could also create a time loop, but he didn't think it was prudent to bring that up now.

"You want option three, don't you?" she intuited.

He smiled and started to touch her, but thought better of it and let his hands drop to his sides. "That's why I love you, Tasha. You've always read me so well. I'm sorry that I kissed you before without asking. That's how I gage what and how much my Tasha has had to drink. I should have known something was up when there was no Belvedere on your breath."

Natasha was rather shocked, but she hid it as well as she could. How had they ended up this broken? "So, what do you want to ask me, and what do you want me to do?"

"Meddling with time is almost always a bad idea for the reasons I just mentioned. However, I've done it before with acceptable results, and I've considered how best to do it in a hypothetical sense enough to have a plan worked out." She was looking at him like he was making less and less sense. "Okay, I've identified two changes that might keep a lot of people alive and much happier. I'm being very selfish about this, but I want to show you something."

He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a dark flat stone about the size of his palm. "I've not shown you this yet in your time, but this is the stone I threw that brought 'Anna to me. I made the rock, but she infused it with a type of magic that constructs tools as they are needed and desired. It's a Nyxian version of an iPad or the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver or Molly Weasley's family clock or what have you."

"Hmm, a Rock of Requirement?" she suggested with one eyebrow quirked. Adam pursed his lips, but he couldn't help giving her a small smile. Damn, he missed this less damaged version of her so much.

"I'll try and remember that one." He showed her the side of the stone with Yggdrasil. "This is the World Tree, which is also a map of the Nine Realms."

"I know this. That's Asgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim, Muspelheim, Nidavellir, and we are on Midgard," she concluded with a slightly smug smile.

"Impressive," he said. "Been singing drinking songs with Thor, haven't you?"

"I will give him some credit," Natasha said.

"What I want you to remember is this, see how Midgard is mostly blue while the majority of the others are red or blackened?" Natasha nodded. "I want you to remember this and point it out when I show you the stone. Tell me what's burnt out or missing in your dream. I would give this to you, but objects can't go back through time from the astral plane." He sighed heavily, "That's just as well since this is all I have left of 'Anna and Brucelus."

"Your wife and child?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes, I said I was doing this for selfish reasons," he added with a sad chuckle. "Here, see the green dot? That's mine. There used to be a gold dot for 'Anna and one that was white for Brucelus. This is where Nix is." She noted that part of the map was totally black. "My strategy is to get me to leave Earth for Nix sooner. Bruce and I figured out how to take down the invaders' defenses by destroying them from inside. My hope is we'll recognize what's going on sooner and either stop the invasion in its own dimension or at least have enough time to evacuate more people."

"All right, I understand this part: we get you to Nix sooner than later. What is the other part?" Natasha asked.

"How many weeks along are you?"

"Eleven to twelve weeks."

Adam nodded, remembering and fitting together the context from his memories. "I've had ten years to think about this . . ."

Natasha thought of the first part of her dream, the upsetting fragment of a conversation with Bruce in Central Park. She suddenly blurted, "We lost the baby, didn't we?"

Adam looked at her sadly, not wanting to say it out loud, yet, knowing he had to do it. "Babies, actually." Adam gently took her hands in his. "But you're going to fix what's wrong this time because you're going to know who can stabilize the second child's DNA. Bruce, Helen, Betty, and Stephen were on the right track, there just wasn't a means to correct the problem in time. In your time, Gorna is a physician in training in 'Anna's court. All you'll have to do is request their help, and 'Anna will grant it. I certainly won't hesitate to be the donor you'll need. Gorna figured out the method for correcting the mitochondrial flaw using my cells. We almost managed it with Brucelus' twin later on Nix. Maybe that will happen this time. Anyway, once that's done, send me to Nix. It won't matter how—just get me to go."

"How long did you wait before leaving Earth the first time?" Natasha asked.

"A little over a year so I could train with Strange and Master Wong. Skipping part of that probably won't matter in the long run since we should still be able to communicate. Just make sure I go as soon as your children are safe, okay?"

Natasha nodded her head and frowned. "I'm sure it's occurred to you this 'meddling' may make things worse."

"I can't imagine much worse, or I would have sent you back already." The only thing worse Adam could imagine would be her death, but in many ways, she had died when her children did. The woman he'd married had never really stopped grieving, and to be fair, neither had he. They'd both tried after his brother was gone, but neither of them was functioning well enough to make something new work.

Natasha had one last hard question for him, "Do you really think you have the right to do this, Adam? This feels like we're playing God."

He snorted bitterly, "Only with a small 'g'. By default, I'm the last Regent of the burnt-out cinder that is Nix, the Hulk is its so-called Champion, I'm very reluctantly Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, and I'm the last Banner besides yourself to survive the invasion. None of that means very much if you don't want to try and change our lot. It's up to you. I won't force you to try this."

Natasha stared at Adam. She wanted to scream at him and refuse to make this choice he'd put upon her, but that wasn't an option. If this was real, chances were they'd already changed things just by discussing it. Well, he'd laid his cards on the table. It was up to her to walk away or cast her lot in with him. "Get Gorna from Nix. Get you to Nix. Are you going to help me remember it?"

"I'm going to try. Thank you, Tasha," he said with relief and just a little hope.

"I won't see you again if this works."

"No, I'll be different and so will everyone else, including you." Adam hesitated and looked at her longingly.

"Go ahead and say it Adam. This is the only chance we're going to get."

"I told you I'm selfish," he said as his voice cracked. "I've always loved you. From the moment I separated you out from the pain, I wanted to be someone you could love."

"You are, Adam. But, we both know it wouldn't work."

"I know." She pulled him close and rested her head against his chest. He held her and placed his right hand on her head. "Ready?" he asked. She nodded, but kept holding onto him. As gently as he could, Adam began to sift through her memories of what she'd experienced over the last few hours. He divided out the details that might put the mission in jeopardy and one by one began to snuff them out.

Natasha looked up at Adam and placed her hands on both sides of his face. "Thank you," she told him and pulled him into a kiss.

((o))

"GORNA!" Natasha almost shouted as she sat up in the hotel bed beside Bruce.

He startled awake and lay there blinking. "Okay, but I think I like _Lorna_ better. Uh, it's kind of close to Laura, too. Who's Gorna?"

"I . . . I'm not sure, but she's important," Natasha gasped, trying to catch her breath and slow her heart back down. "Oh, my God, you would not believe what I dreamed about."

He stroked her back, "It's still a little early to get up. Why don't you lay back down and tell me about it?"

"Okay, let me use the toilet first," Natasha said as she rolled to her feet. As she finished and washed her hands, she decided to brush her teeth again before she scampered back to bed. "Kiss me," she demanded while leaning over Bruce who'd nearly fallen back to sleep.

"Come here," he said, making kissing noises with his lips to guide her in the almost dark room till she made contact. He enfolded her in his arms and kept up the deep slow mouth work until he wondered if she wanted to take this further. Freshly brushed teeth were usually a good indicator, but whatever she'd dreamed about had clearly upset her. He moved his left hand to her gloriously toned ass and kneaded it. She shifted so her knees were astride his hips and ground into him. His body instinctively responded as Bruce shook off sleep. "Is your doctor going to be okay with us having sex this close to an exam?"

"She didn't say not to. I think that's more for a Pap smear, which we already did, or other cell samples."

"I just don't want to get you into trouble," Bruce explained as he ran his hands up her sides and settled them on her breasts.

"Oh, you've already gotten me into all kinds of trouble, Doc," she said as she reached over and turned on a bedside light to low.

Bruce squinted as his eyes adjusted, and she settled back over him. "You know that's my job, right? Get you in a family way and raise beautiful babies with you. Our lives as we know them are over, Ms. Romanoff. Troubles one right after another," he murmured as he licked then sucked at her left breast, being careful not to bruise her. With all the doctor's visits, he was going to have to remember not to embarrass her too much.

Natasha reached down and stroked him. He'd been halfway hard when she started kissing him, so now he was ready. She'd grabbed the anti-radiation foam and a condom out of her bag while she was in the bathroom, but he stopped her from opening them.

"Let's play it safe. How about we 69?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Are you sure? We made quite a mess last time."

"Oh, I think you can handle me," he said with a naughty smile.

The redhead grabbed a box of tissues from off the nightstand. "Uh-hum," Natasha hummed skeptically, but Bruce simply grinned at her. "All right, I suppose we can try to do better," she charged. This position always seemed to bring out the competitive streak in both of them. She straddled Bruce after he'd kicked off the bed covers and moved further away from the headboard.

"I promise, I will fuck you to your heart's content, with or without my cock in you," he assured her.

Natasha knew that was true, but it was fun to tease him a bit. "So, are you going to make this a competition, Banner?"

He shrugged. "Maybe, but I probably shouldn't mark you up before a doctor's appointment. However, you are welcome to bruise and bite me all you want."

"I call top then," she replied with a snort. He had her position her knees one above his left shoulder and the other below his right armpit. Natasha chuckled as she directed her lover to spread his legs wider. She ran her right hand up and down Bruce's thighs, enjoying the feel of his body hair over his skin and muscles and bones. _Sladkiy ray!_ Sweet heaven, he smelled like caramel and salt and sex to her! She selected a spot on the inside of his upper thighs and kissed him bruisingly hard before nipping his skin. He yelped and then gave a satisfied groan as he tried to service her needs. This was usually how it went with one distracting the other as they pushed each other closer to an orgasm. Natasha repeated her ministrations on Bruce's other thigh since he was quite fond of symmetry. His cock was already dribbling a bit of pre-cum from the slit in the dark head. She flicked it with the tip of her tongue, and he shivered.

There was always a give and take with this position, so he soon had her moaning as his mouth worked at her thighs, and he firmly rubbed her mons with his palm. Bruce reached around her legs with his right arm, so he could use both hands on her, parting her nether lips and leaning up to kiss her delicately with his mouth and tongue. Pregnancy smelled and tasted so good on her.

She found Bruce's skills absolutely distracting; however, two could play at that! Natasha gently licked down his shaft, paying a lot of attention to the underside. She continued down to his balls and blew on them, tenderly applying her tongue and lips to the darker hued skin of his sack. Bruce jerked and gave a higher-pitched moan, but he didn't stop using his mouth on her. Natasha made sure her breasts rubbed against his erection, and her hair randomly brushed against him. Before long he was thrusting his hips, wordlessly begging for her attention as he continued to eat her out. She finally took his dick's engorged, purple head into her mouth and wrapper her tongue around it. She took as much of his length in as she could, opening up her jaw and throat. Nat would never complain, but giving good oral was always a bit more of a challenge on a well-endowed guy like hers. She was up to the challenge.

When she finally took him into her mouth, Bruce wanted to be selfish and just lay back while she had her way with him, but he wasn't going to let her win so easily. He turned his head and used his left hand to slip a finger into her very wet cunt. One of his not-so-secret delights was knowing how wet she got for him. Soon he lay his head back on the bed so he could slip in a second finger, turning his wrist back and around as he penetrated her and withdrew a bit before repeating the motion. Soon she was rocking and moving with his thrusts. They were both close, so she removed her mouth from his shaft with a slurping pop and used her hand to continue to stroke and jerk him off since it was a standing agreement she wouldn't swallow his load.

"Yes, Bruce! Yes, Bruce!" she told him. He made sure to rub her clit with his wrist as he reached higher along her pelvic arch for the right spot and rocked his hand back forward and back as she gasped and tightened down on him.

Nat continued stroking him and he arched his back, bucking into her hand as he came in a gushing series of spurts that covered her hand and his belly. "Oh, Natasha!" he gasped. When she felt steady, Natasha climbed off of him and used several tissues on the two of them to clean up. He grabbed a handful and wiped off the rest. "Well, not so bad this time, huh?" Bruce asked. They leaned over and kissed, enjoying the tastes of themselves on their partner's lips. Without any warning, Natasha abruptly jumped and pulled back. He looked at her in surprise.

"I dreamed I kissed Adam," she blurted out.

Okay, that wasn't at all what he was expecting. Bruce blew out a sigh. Just when he thought he had her relaxed . . . Obviously, the dream was bothering her more than she'd let on at first. Better to get it out now than later. "I'm guessing this wasn't a peck on the cheek or the top of the head." She nodded then pulled up her legs and sat cross-legged on the bed. "Was there a context for it or was it just out of the blue?" Bruce asked.

Natasha thought for a moment. "There were at least three parts to this dream, so there was some context. This was at the very end of the third part. It had to be years into the future. Part of the team was new, and we were older. Adam was the Sorcerer Supreme and you were dead." She looked at him with some distress. "We were retrieving your body. Tony and Adam were arguing—it was awful. I think we'd lost the baby, and it drove us apart. Maybe Adam and I were married."

Bruce had moved behind Natasha and curled his arms and legs around her as she spoke. He rubbed her back. "No wonder you're upset. This sounds like quite a nightmare."

"In the first part, I was back in Kolkata, following you and Prapti. You didn't recognize me and you started to Hulk-out. But you didn't get big, you got smaller and younger till you were a middle-school age Adam and then a little auburn-haired boy with my color eyes. He wanted me to help his sister."

Pressing his front to her back and more closely encircling her legs with his, Bruce rubbed her shoulders, finding the knotted spots to work the tension out of her. "This is your brain on anxiety, Nat. It's going to be okay. You're working out your fears," he told her in his most soothing voice. "I'm worried about the baby, too, but that's perfectly normal. We're going to keep worrying from now on until there are grandkids if we're that fortunate. Then, we get to worry about them, too."

"I think this might be something different from just an anxiety dream, Bruce."

"Okay, um, you cried out a name when you woke up."

"Gorna."

"Can you remember what that's connected to?" he asked.

"Help. Help with something," Natasha stated as she wracked her brain, pushing her hair back from her face.

"Is it a person, place, or thing?" Bruce prompted.

"A person. A woman. I'm pretty certain of that." The information seemed so close if she could just pull it out of her head.

"I'd have to look this up, but I think it's also a town in Rumania, maybe?" Bruce offered.

Natasha shook her head. "Gorna Oryahovitsa is a town in northern Bulgaria. No, this one is someone's name. Someone who can help us with something important . . . I think it has to do with the baby."

"Okay, I believe you." Bruce rubbed the stubble along his jaw. "We'll ask around and see. It's a pretty unusual name, so people will probably remember it." He went back to working on her shoulders and down her spine. "Maybe it's a specialist or some other sort of doctor?"

"That seems right," Natasha bit her lower lip. "I need to talk to Adam, too. There's something else to do with him. Damn, it's just beyond what I can remember."

Bruce knew exactly how she felt because he'd struggled to remember so many dreams and memories himself. Whether or not one remembered in the end, the lack of control could be extremely distressing. He hugged her and kissed the side of her neck. "We'll see him in a few more hours. Let's lay back down. There's nothing we can do about it till then."

"I don't think I could go back to sleep if I tried right now," Natasha told him.

"Well, you're pretty damn tense, so I'm not surprised," he said with a sad chuckle. So much for a nap. "You know, I think there's a lap pool downstairs. Or, would you want to go for a run?"

"I didn't bring a bathing suit, but I did bring running shoes. I may not have brought the right clothes though."

Bruce chuckled. "You know what? I have an idea, but we may want to hack an app first," he said with a grin.

Twenty minutes later, they'd cleaned up a bit and managed to disable the communications on one of the TechUwear full-length pants and shirt sets for her. As they'd hoped, the clothes adjusted to her size and build. "Well, well, you make a cute Hulk," Bruce teased as they stretched out.

She mimed a right hook to his jaw, "I am SMASHing!"

"Yes, you are! Let's go checkout Smale Park while the lights are still on. I'm hoping there wasn't too much flooding." She pulled on one of his hooded sweatshirts, and he put on a hat and gloves as they headed out. No one was in the common area and the television was even turned off, so Bruce texted Mal and Clint that they'd be out for an early run on the riverfront. It was just before 5:30am when they exited the hotel.

The weather was brisk outside, so they were both glad to have stretched out upstairs. They were soon moving down the incline to the river with clouds of their steamy breath quickly dissipating behind them. There were only a few people out jogging or making service deliveries this early on a Saturday. Bruce pointed out Fountain Square, the Enquirer Building, and then the Underground Railroad Freedom Center as they passed. He directed Natasha to the right or downstream side of the Roebling, and they were surprised to find a brightly lit carousel housed in a protective glass structure just a bit further west of the bridge approach.

"Wow, you didn't mention this," she said as they stopped to gaze inside at the fantastically carved and painted figures.

"I'm not sure how we missed noticing it, but we were a little busy yesterday," Bruce admitted. "We did a little sidetracked from Rich's what-to-see list." The two read through the main plaque that identified it as Carol Ann's Carousel and included information about the Ohio manufacturer and the artists involved. All of the horses and other whimsical mounts had Cincinnati themes, including an Octoberfest horse and a Cincinnati Bearcat mascot for the university. Local landmarks were depicted on the decorative panels.

Natasha frowned, "Well, it doesn't open till 11:00am, so I'm afraid a visit is out for this trip."

"Hey, next time we'll have someone else to bring with us who might enjoy it even more than we do," he suggested.

She grinned and started down the granite steps to the jogging path, and Bruce was quickly beside her. There was some debris left and the water was still mocha brown and high, but the Ohio River was back in its banks. They paused a moment to look at the cofferdam surrounding the bridge structure. "This isn't as big as the Brooklyn Bridge, but that is one impressive construction," Natasha remarked. She grabbed the front of his sweatshirt and gave him a quick kiss, "I'm so proud you guys could save it."

"Hey, Engineering Bros! I'm not sure if Tony is going to get Igor back from either city," he said with a smile and a shrug.

"If it's not weaponized, I'm sure he can spare it for a while."

"True. Race you to the football stadium," he said, and Natasha took off without waiting. Bruce let out a fake roar and followed her. They passed a few runners going in the opposite direction, but otherwise it was quiet until they reached the end of the paved path in a stadium parking lot. He'd kept up with her on six hours of sleep and after having sex, so that wasn't bad.

Natasha did a Rocky-style victory dance around him with her arms in the air.

"You must be feeling a little better," he laughed as he pulled out the water bottle and shared it with her.

She smiled and took a drink. "It's going to bug me at least until I see Adam, but there's nothing I can do about it." Natasha slipped the empty bottle in a recycling bin. "In the meantime, I fully expect to be too queasy to do or eat much soon, so I might as well run my nerves out while I can with my favorite guy."

A moment later, both of them spotted a cyclist approaching. The woman turned off from River Road and glided into the far end of the nearly empty parking lot. Natasha was immediately on full alert. "Relax," Bruce told her. "That's Stacy. She works for Mal." Bruce waved and the tall blonde rode up to them. She was wearing a similar practical athletic outfit to the previous day's, but she had added a reflective orange vest since it was still quite dark. Natasha noted that the woman turned her head slightly to speak into a comm mic somewhere near her jacket's collar. So much for their unscheduled moment of off-the-radar semi-privacy. She'd only spotted one "eye in the sky" so far, but they'd probably out run him by First Street.

"You two are certainly up early on this fine morning. Might want to check your phone, Dr. Banner," she suggested.

"Well, good morning to you, too. Stacy, this is my fiancé Natasha. Natasha, this is Stacy, my favorite biker who makes deliveries and even directs traffic when required." The cyclist offered her gloved hand and Natasha shook it.

"A woman with multiple talents. I can appreciate that. Thanks for keeping an eye on him," Natasha said.

"No problem. He left out that I stood down an Ohio National Guard Unit, but who's keeping track," she joked.

Bruce pulled out his phone and took it off airplane mode. Tony had texted to see where they were . . . more than once, so Bruce responded that they were heading back from a run. He tried to remember if he'd warned Adam about Tony paying a visit this morning. That might get interesting. He could tell Adam still wasn't up yet, but there was plenty of time. "Anybody in a panic besides Tony at the moment?" he asked Stacy who was pointing out a set of murals on the Kentucky's south riverbank to Nat.

"I assume since I reported in that all panics have ceased. Mal knows, so all should be good," the tall woman said with a shrug.

"Okay, maybe we should head back, Nat," he suggested. He could now sense Adam stirring, so it was time they joined the rest of the world. Natasha whipped his butt on the return trip, mostly because it was all uphill and she clearly wanted a challenge. She paused in Fountain Square to look at the iconic statue of the woman with her outstretched arms, imagining what it must look like with water flowing from her hands.

"So, she's been moved twice," Natasha said as Bruce jogged up to stand beside her.

"Right, _The Genius of Water_. I remember when she was in the middle of the street, before they tore down several buildings to create this space."

Natasha nodded and grabbed his left hand in her right as they walked back across the street to the hotel. Tony was waiting for them in the common area as they stepped out of the stairwell. It was just about 6:30am, but Bruce was guessing the engineer was on his second pot of coffee.

"Where the hell were you two? I was ready to organize a search party. I had to eat breakfast with just Barton, and he's really not that sociable until the caffeine kicks in. Is Adam up yet?" the engineer sputtered without a pause. He was dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and hoodie, what Natasha called Tony's lab uniform, and he was clearly ready to go see a new dimension a half hour ago.

"Maybe for about 20 minutes is all," Bruce replied. Oh, this was going to be fun! "Please, give him a chance to get his bearings, and us a few minutes to clean up."

"No problem. I'll go get you some breakfast. Did I say good morning?" Natasha shook her head, knowing she wouldn't get a word in edgewise. "Decaf for you then and regular octane for Bruce," Tony concluded and grabbed the elevator to go back down to the buffet.

"Now, I think I need a nap," Bruce lamented. "I bet he's had double espresso instead of regular coffee."

"That would not surprise me one bit," Natasha replied. "I'm sure Adam is just gonna love working with him like that."

"Adam can throw him in the lake if he gets to be too much." Bruce carded them into their suite and made sure the doors were locked if not Tony-proofed. "You can go shower first. I'll hold him off if he returns as fast as I think he will."

Natasha gave Bruce a quick kiss, "Thanks, I won't take long." By the time she was out of the shower, she heard male voices on the other end of the suite, so she quickly slipped into her comfortable street clothes and towel dried her hair. She hoped Tony had brought up more than decaf because now she really did feel hungry. Natasha opened the bedroom door and peered into the living room area. "To her surprise, it was Adam rather than Tony mirroring some of Bruce's warm up forms with him in a spot they'd cleared out by the windows. The sun was just starting to lighten up the edge of the skyline.

"Tasha!" Adam called out as soon as he saw her and jumped to his feet. He'd not shaved, but at least he'd shed the generic casual and put on a black and green Henley shirt and jeans. They were definitely going shopping at the first opportunity. He hugged her and stepped back, grinning like an eager puppy, but also looking a bit tired around the eyes. Hmm, just maybe burning the candle at both ends was catching up with him, too. "Good morning. I know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches now!"

Natasha did her best not to laugh because he was obviously proud of his new accomplishment. "More importantly, I hope we can count on you not to burn the tower down with the stove now?" she asked.

"Oh, Pepper taught me better than that," he said with a laugh. "Bruce has always been really into safety protocols, so 'safety first' has been drummed in for a while." He rubbed his stubble and fidgeted for a moment. "Bruce says you had a nightmare, and I was in it. Would you mind sharing what it was about?"

Leave it to Bruce to be the setup man, she thought, but she wasn't about to do a power spike of shocking truth when a soft lob was called for. "Well, I just have bits and pieces, but some parts were really vivid. You had some awesome sideburns, by the way."

"Really?" That seemed to peak his interest as they sat down on a couch near the back of the living space while Bruce headed into the bathroom to get cleaned up.

"Yes, sideburns and hair that was long enough to have a short fishtail braid in the back."

"So, I was a Viking wannabe?" Adam guessed.

"No, no undercut in back if that's what you mean." She and Bruce had watched a little of that show on the History Chanel. Natasha reached over and fluffed the hair over his forehead. "Just some stray curls up front. You were going a little gray on the sides though," she teased.

Adam snorted and blushed, "Sounds like something to look forward to."

"Hey, you opened a portal from a moving quin-jet to pick me up in DC," she added. "That seems pretty accomplished."

"Wow, that's got to be really difficult." Adam scratched the back of his head, "I'm not even sure if that's possible. I'll have to ask Stephen about it."

"Please promise not to try it till you've ascertained whether or not it's possible."

"Believe me, I won't. I'm going to get my butt chewed enough for breaking quarantine twice already. I've only been in training a couple of days, and I'm in trouble." She didn't think he looked all that upset.

Natasha raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Okay, before you get banished back to Never-Never Land, do you know anyone named Gorna?" she asked.

He thought for a moment, "No, but you know I don't exactly know that many people. Maybe Stephen or Master Wong would?" Adam stretched his legs out, leaned back, and shoved his hands in his pockets. His left hand wrapped around the flat stone. He pulled it out and ran his thumb over the surface, and Yggdrasil's image glowed to life. "Maybe 'Anna would know someone, but I'm not sure how to ask her."

Natasha stared at the stone in his hand. Somehow, it seemed familiar, "What is that?"

"I'm still trying to figure it out," he said with a frown. "I'm beginning to suspect there's a Gameboy in here, and I'm not leveling up all that fast," he grumbled. "Anyway," he said dramatically, "it's the stone I made and threw into the void where it somehow got across the galaxy and hit 'Anna." He presented the piece with his hand out in a courtly gesture, so Natasha could see the flat stone and take it if she wanted. For some reason, she really didn't want to touch it, so she let him hold it up and show her its features. "At first, I thought 'Anna had just put her mark on the one side, but then the map with the World Tree showed up. See the blue lines? That's Asgard and here is Earth." Natasha nodded as she studied the softly glowing blue representations. "I'm the green dot down here while up there past Asgard is Nix and the gold dot is 'Anna's. If I'm near water and think of her, it calls her, but the thing does more than that. I just haven't got it figured out yet."

"The Rock of Requirement," she murmured. Natasha was suddenly hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. "Okay, this is going to sound completely crazy, but it's like you've explained this before except half of the realms that are blue right now were red and black. And some of the lights were, no _are_ missing."

Now that did get his attention because only the Dark Elves' Svartalfheim was currently black and red. He wasn't sure if it was because of politics or the physical state of the realm. "Would you show me which ones, Tasha?"

She pointed to the top of the tree, "It started with Asgard's Protectorates like Nix and spread down to us in Midgard."

"I'm not sure what black and red mean yet, but they can't be good," Adam surmised. "War? Plague? Political upheaval? Spiritual unrest? Natural disaster? I imagine it's some sort of destruction."

Natasha nodded. She doubted Nixians' color codes diverged that greatly from Earth's. "Maybe a combination of those? This must have been part of the dream. It's getting so mixed up now in my head. _Find Gorna_ was first. Then . . . Then . . ." She looked at him and shook her head. "There should have been a white light and a gold one, but both were missing."

He studied her for a moment and took a deep breath. _Vishanti, don't let this be true!_ Now, he had to try and find out more. "Look, I know I was kind of rough the first time I tried giving you information by touch, but you're the only one besides 'Anna with whom I could both give and receive things." He looked at the stone in his hands and wondered if there was some way to keep fine tuning this skill, so it wasn't as rushed and stressful as it had been. He was still concerned that he might have seriously done more ill to Bruce than he'd first thought when he dumped all his own chaotic thoughts into his sibling's brain.

Natasha cleared her throat. "Okay, I'm willing to give it a try. Go slow, right?"

"Right. Start at the beginning and work your way through what you remember of your dream. You don't have to form words. Images and emotions are useful input, too. Oh, and it's okay, you don't need to show me anything you don't want me to see."

They turned from where they sat on the couch, so their shoulders were close to squared up. Natasha placed her hands in his, and they both closed their eyes. The memories may have started off slowly, but once the images began to flow, it was difficult to apply the brakes. This time it was Adam's turn to be a bit overwhelmed. Seeing himself through her eyes was odd and unsettling, especially in the last sequence which was disjointed as if half of the memory had been skipped over or erased. Up to that point, he'd considered most of it to be Natasha's mind working through issues in her subconscious, but something about the way the final part was so fragmented made him reconsider that.

Adam knew she had implanted memories as well as repressed ones, but these were different. It was like she had temporarily been washed ahead in the time stream. He wondered if someone had made adjustments to avoid changing things or to try and cause changes. The cold realization hit Adam that he was the most likely person there in the dream who could have done that, even if he didn't have enough knowledge or subtlety to manage it yet. Why would he have done this? He put the thought away for later.

What he could understand was intriguing, but Adam was smart enough to acknowledge when he was out of his depth. He returned to the sequence in the early section with the child again and focused in on him as the only unknown person to have communicated with Natasha. Adam recognized the toddler was a stand-in for a possible child, one that was old enough to communicate. The child's distress was for his sibling. On a whim, Adam reached out, knowing that he wouldn't sense much in this reality without physical contact. Others were much more adept at this, but he didn't let that discourage him from giving it a try.

To his surprise, Natasha realized what he was mentally probing for, and she joined him, lending her steady presence and making physical connections he couldn't. What they felt wasn't so much visual or auditory or even tactile as it was almost a smell or a taste that could be recognized as different from Natasha. She remembered Bruce describing a scent like rosemary and also buddleja or butterfly bush, and Adam agreed those essences were there as were sounds that could only be quick little heartbeats underneath their own slower adult ones. He listened and felt for notes of discord or distress, but he didn't find any, just the calm feeling of contentment and parallel growth in progress. There was a quiet humming, and it wasn't a single pitch but a dyad or two-note chord. What he sensed was fleeting but definitely there.

Natasha and Adam were already on their way out of their state of connected consciousness when Tony knocked on the suite's door, so it wasn't too awkward when they opened their eyes and let go of each other's hands. Bruce was out of the shower and already dressed in jeans and a dress shirt with a gray sweater, so he was the one to open the door for Tony and the room service cart loaded down with whatever foods and beverages had struck his manic fancy.

Since Natasha and Adam were almost around the corner from the foyer, Tony hadn't spotted them yet. Natasha pressed her lips together, trying to hold in her excitement, but she couldn't keep from breaking into a smile as they stared at each other. Adam laughed, but kept his voice low, "Definitely, two, right?"

Nat pressed a finger to his lips. "Quiet. Let's not spoil the surprise for Bruce."

"Not for a million bowls of ice cream," he joked. "However, something else smells pretty good in here."

Natasha's stomach growled and they both laughed. "That better be eggs Benedict, because I smell hollandaise," she said loudly enough for Tony to hear.

"Your wish is my command," Tony said with a grin as he uncovered a plate with the correct dish.

"Mine!" she said and hopped over and grabbed it before Tony could set it on the table. "By the way, Tony, this is Adam if you've not met."

"Oh, we've met in all shapes and sizes already, but good morning to . . . uh, you!" Tony said as he focused on Adam. He didn't even try to avoid staring in fascination as he shook Adam's hand.

"Hey," Adam said nervously. "Uh, happy Saturday, Tony. I guess it's a good day to be up early. What smells so good?"

"Come have a look. I got some things off the menu that weren't on the buffet."

Adam took a deep breath, "Something smells like butter and bread, but it's not toast."

"I bet it's the popovers," suggested Bruce who was helping move plates onto the table. "Sit down and eat them now because they're only really good while they're hot." In addition to the popovers, Tony had brought stuffed French toast, omelets, fruit-filled crepes, pastries, and a plate of bacon, sausages, and goetta.

Natasha was halfway through her plate of eggs Benedict and none of the guys felt brave enough to ask for a bite. Tony slowly slid her large decaf across the table toward her with exaggerated care. "Mine!" she playfully growled again, and they all chuckled.

"Gee, Bruce, you ought to feed her better or you're going to be in trouble with the doctor," Tony joked.

"Oh, I think she knows what she likes to eat," Bruce replied, "and she gets what she wants." He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"And so do you," she purred with a knowing smile and kissed him back.

 ** **End Notes:**** Okay, I'm kind of traumatized and curled up in a ball over here under the dinette set. You can join me if you like. I might even try to explain things.

Always open to constructive feedback.

Next chapter, we are going to the doctor's office. Things will happen. I won't promise every single one will be good.

I totally forgot last chapter to thank my hub for fact-checking my fishing knowledge.


	60. Chapter 60

****Summary:**** It's time for a quick walk in Adam's realm. One step of a puzzle is solved. Introductions are made. Nat drinks a lot of water. Barnyard decor is discussed. Bruce goes blonde. Smol bean magic at the doctor's office. There are fluffs and feels.

 ** **Notes:**** Welcome to giant, economy-sized Chapter 60. Yes! We made it to the doctor's office! If you're as suggestible as I am, you may want to take a bathroom break because Nat has to drink a lot of water for the ultrasound. My eternal thanks to Autumn_Froste for the beta duties! See you on the other side!

 **Chapter 60: Level Up**

Tony set the last empty plate on the cart and leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh. Between the four of them, they'd wiped out the breakfast sampler/mini buffet he'd brought up to Bruce's suite. With two famished sometimes Hulks and an assassin eating for two, he wasn't all that surprised. Now, Natasha being the one to eat the goetta stuff, that was a surprise! It was just after 7:00am, so they had time to plan and digest a few things before heading off in different directions.

He looked over at Bruce and Nat making goo-goo eyes and Adam dutifully ignoring them to stare at something in his hands. Tony was just getting to know this guy, but even he could tell there was a lot going on inside that head. Pepper was definitely right about giving Adam his own apartment as soon as possible. Even if he didn't use it, the fellow deserved his own space, and so did the other two, preferably before they got on each other's nerves and really needed it. He thought he'd ask Nat about it when he had a chance.

"You have to drink how much water, again?" Tony asked Natasha for about the third time.

"I have to drink six eight-ounce glasses of water an hour prior to the appointment at 9:00am, so I can't start chugging until 8:00am," Natasha repeated patiently as she leaned forward and rested her hand on Bruce's, which had been working further and further up her thigh underneath the table.

"Yeesh!" Tony responded with a shudder. "Better you than me, Nat. Is that to get you used to the torture or does it serve an actual purpose?" he joked.

Bruce, who'd been doing more than just Googling the subject, suddenly looked like he was ready to go all Hermione Granger, so Natasha shook her head and gestured for him to answer. "It's to push the intestines up out of the way and make the bladder and the rest of the organs in the pelvic area easier to see. I assume they are doing this to get a look at how the tubal ligation failed as well as how the baby is doing."

"I think they also would like to track down the missing clamp to be sure it's not going to cause any complications," she added.

Adam hadn't added much to the conversation because he didn't want to let anything about there being _babies_ slip, but he did give Natasha a rather alarmed look at the idea of something metal wandering around that close to her womb and the babies. He cleared his throat and asked, "What are the clamps made out of?"

Nat looked at Bruce for an answer. "That's a good one to ask the obstetrician, but it could be anything from plastic to titanium," he surmised. "In fact, it might have been displaced for years."

"So, if they find it, will they take it out?" Adam asked.

"That's for Dr. Vining to recommend," Natasha replied. "If it's in a stable position that's out of the way, they may just leave it for now."

"Or, if you have a caesarian, they may remove it then," Bruce added.

Adam nodded. He didn't feel all that reassured, but he let it rest and moved on to a matter he did have some say in. "Do you still want me to take you to your appointment? I could open a portal just down the street from the doctor's office in an alley or a parking garage because I do know that area well enough to do it."

"Thanks, but we better stick with the plan. It will get us there without causing too much suspicion and keep Bruce's exposure to a minimum," she explained. "Since we'll get into the Caddy in the tower's garage and out right in front of the building where the doctor's office is, all we'll need to do is get him from the car to the building and from the building back into the car."

"Won't there be security cameras and people who might recognize him?" Adam inquired.

"That's why I brought a photostatic veil," she said with a triumphant smile.

Bruce looked at her and rolled his eyes. "Won't a hoodie and a ball cap be enough?" He liked the idea of it being advanced tech, but the thought of wearing a "nano mask" creeped him out a bit. "Plus, how am I going to wear my glasses if I need to . . . oh, never mind?"

Natasha gave him a look that said he better just trust her judgment.

"Fine," Bruce groused. "Who are you going to have me looking like?"

Natasha grinned. "Sean from the tower staff. He's the closest to your size and build, and it wouldn't be that unusual for him to be body-guarding or acting as a backup chauffer or baggage carrier."

"Look out, Bruce. She's already upgrading you to a younger model," Tony said with a chuckle.

"Yah, I know," Bruce said. "Don't forget blonde and a former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent." Nat gave him a poke in the ribs for the last part.

Tony turned his attentions to Adam who was still messing with something that definitely was not an electronic device in his hands. "Big Guy, what have you got that seems to be frustrating you?"

"It's a rock," he said, not sure he wanted Tony handling it or teasing him about it.

"Go ahead and let him have a look at it, Adam. It'll be interesting to see what he makes of it," Bruce encouraged. Tony was to Adam's right, so he set the stone on the table in front of the engineer.

"I'm pretty sure I can't hurt it," Tony remarked as he lowered and tilted his head to get a good look at it on the flat surface. Adam stroked the top with his index finger, and Yggdrasil lit up on the surface. Now, it had all of Tony's attention. "So, this is THE rock you got back from 'Anna?"

"One and the same. Go ahead, pick it up," Adam said.

Tony carefully picked the dark stone up and weighed it in his left hand. "Okay, I see something that looks rather Norse."

"Right," Adam acknowledged and explained the map of the Nine Realms before pointing out the green and gold dots.

"Well, as maps and celestial GPSs go, it's definitely much more durable than paper or plastic and glass. What's bothering you other than the lack of a warrantee or a place for the batteries to go?"

Adam snorted. "It didn't exactly come with an owner's manual either. I figured out I can summon 'Anna with it if I'm near a body of water. It's like a puzzle. I'm pretty certain it will do more if I can just figure it out."

"Well, what do you want it to do?" Tony prodded.

"Right now, I wish it were like a phone or it had Skype or . . ."

"Oh, go for a solid light hologram if you have a choice," Bruce suggested with unexpected seriousness.

"If what you're wanting to do is see or talk to someone, why don't you just open a portal?" Tony asked.

"I have to be able to envision a place. Generally, that means I'd have to have been there. I've not been to Nix yet, have you?"

"No, but for all I know I was closer to it for a minute or so a few years back just before you saved me from certain death." Tony returned the stone and placed it in Adam's hand. "I get it. You're struggling with that point in the creative process where you have an idea of where you want to go, but nothing seems to be falling into place. Frustrating as hell. Put it away for a bit, get your mind off it, and something will eventually come. Trust me on that, okay?"

Adam nodded and slipped the stone back in his left pocket. "I was really hoping to ask 'Anna about Gorna."

"What's 'Gorna'?"

Natasha sighed. "She's a person. I had a really odd dream that told me to look for her because she would help us with something about the baby. Wouldn't know anyone by that name, would you?"

"No, not that I remember, but I'm not great with names, even an odd one like that. You'd be better off asking Pepper or Friday than me. Hey, wasn't Gorna an alien on _Star Trek_?"

"The Gorn were a species of aliens in the original Trek series. They looked like big rubber lizards with disco-ball eyes," Bruce reminded him.

"My other guess was _Lorna Doone_ , but that's an old movie, or is that _Brigadoon_?" Tony asked. "I always get those confused."

Nat shook her head. " _Lorna Doone_ is a novel that was made into a movie."

"And a cookie," added Bruce with a smile. " _Brigadoon_ is a Lerner and Lowe musical that became a movie with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. It's about a Scottish village that only appears for a day every hundred years. Ring a bell?" Tony looked at them blankly with pursed lips and his eyebrows raised as he shook his head.

"Sounds entertaining, but none of these have anything to do with _Gorna_ ," Adam noted. He was ready for a change in subject. "Okay, so I drop you two off at the tower, and Tony and I go to my dimension and . . ."

"Hold on, I have a suggestion," interrupted Tony. "How about, while we're already at the tower, I take you on a lab tour, Adam?"

"Uh, sure. I'd like that. That would probably work out a little better for taking Bruce back anyway since it's easier to communicate if we're all in the same reality," Adam surmised.

Bruce and Natasha were both looking at Tony rather suspiciously, wondering what he had planned. "I thought you were in a big hurry to see Adam's dimension?" Bruce asked.

"I was going to say, as long as Adam is breaking curfew or quarantine, we might as well get some scans done while you're here if you're willing, Big Guy," Tony explained. "It would be easier than hauling in large but delicate equipment that would have to be recalibrated there and again back here in the end."

"I doubt Strange is going to send him to his room, but you better firewall or isolate the lab and sequester the results like certain other 'interesting' information," Natasha pointed out as she thought back to late last summer and all the information they collected and then "buried" because of the leaks at Helen Cho's lab.

"Of course," the engineer agreed. "Wouldn't have it any other way." In fact, he was itching to do data comparisons since 1) Adam was way, way less likely to tear up the lab now and 2) they could skirt the Agreements because "Adam" didn't exist, at least not on record just yet.

"So, we're playing around in the lab while Happy takes Tasha, Bruce, and Pepper to the doctor's appointment," Adam clarified.

"Right, we'll wait for Bruce and go see your Never-Never Land," Tony said with a pleased grin. "That should take us up to noonish, and Bruce's Keynote isn't until 8:00pm. I'm sure we'll think of more to do in between."

Natasha still wasn't convinced everything that Tony had planned was exactly benign. From the guarded look on Adam's face, she could tell he harbored a few suspicions as well, so she didn't say anything more. She reminded herself he was a big boy, and he'd have to figure out how to deal with Tony alone at some point. Might as well be sooner than later. "You know, we have enough time. Why don't we take a quick tour of the lodge area first? I could use a walk before I have to drink all that water."

Adam brightened up, "Sure, if you'd like to see it, I kind of need to get up and move. I wanted to grab my coat, too."

"That sounds like an excellent idea to me," Bruce said as he stretched his arms above his head.

"Well, why not?" Tony said. "I'll ping Mal with the update, so there isn't panic in the penthouse when they can't find us."

In a short time, they'd cleaned up and gotten coats and baggage together before meeting back in the suite. Adam pulled out the Sling-Ring and smoothly went through the hand gestures as he invoked the spell. The showering sparks were all uniformly golden as the portal manifested and grew, just like the first one he'd made that morning to get there. That wasn't a surprise to Adam because he knew he wasn't leaning on the Gamma and wouldn't need to unless he went through the stress of a full workout or practice session. He made a mental note to ask one of the Masters about this. For today, Stephen had given him the assignment to come up with a weapon, but Adam was sure that could wait till later since—fingers crossed—he'd consistently managed a shield for each hand that morning before he came through. He'd also spent some time working on another defensive strategy that he wanted to test in reality. Maybe Tony would be willing to help him with it?

When the portal had reached about seven feet, Adam stabilized it and stepped back. He'd used the driveway in front of the lodge, but this time the opening faced the lake. Adam gave an all-aboard gesture with his right hand as he stood to the portal's side. "Welcome to my place, everyone."

Tony eagerly stepped through onto the gravel and paving stones. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed as he turned around gazing at much more than the simple replica he'd been expecting. "Should I sue you for copyright infringement or stolen property?!"

The other three walked through a little more sedately behind Tony, and Adam dismissed the portal. "Thanks. It is a little different from the one in reality. I've not attempted a seasonal cycle, but that's okay because I like spring and summer best." He'd picked a mild spring day with high clouds dotting a blue sky. He'd even managed a slight breeze, which turned out to be one of his trickiest effects to create without making more problems than it was worth.

"Can I walk down to the lake? I won't run into a wall or something, will I?" the enthusiastic engineer asked.

Bruce laughed, "It's not the _Enterprise_ Holodeck, Tony."

"You have to think about hitting an edge or a thin spot and know where you want to go, but there are no 'walls' close to us here," Adam said. "I can show you other places later, but this is one of the most detailed large areas. I spend more time here and a few other spots than the rest. Sometimes, I make new places, too."

"I hear birds," Natasha said. "Is it just the sound or do you have actual black birds and finches here?"

Adam grinned and took her hand in his and held it up. "Flatten out you palm." She did so and a male goldfinch landed on her hand, eyed her for a moment as if he expected her to have something for him, and then took flight. "Oops! Here," Adam poured a small amount of sunflower and millet seed onto her palm. "Don't ask where it came from," he said with wink. "Now, try again." As she held up her hand this time, the yellow, black, and white bird returned and trilled out a call to his mate. The mostly yellow female joined him, and they picked out what they wanted from her palm before flying off. Natasha laughed with delight.

"Those are new," Bruce noted with a chuckle. "I thought you were sticking to insects and amphibians."

"I don't think I'll be working any higher on the food chain than turtles and hawks at some point. Predators are trickier. I'm not keen on things dying, but I don't plan on getting overrun either," his brother explained. In fact, he'd given almost everything with a brain a short "life span" to avoid any chance at something developing actual sententiousness. He had no intention of creating an Ultron or even an R2 or a Goddard.

Bruce shook his head and laughed. "Uncle Morris would love this. You're reverse engineering an environment."

"I know," Adam said fondly, "but he'd probably scold me for leaving out the mosquitoes. This only mimics a few parts." What he did not say was the plants were thriving as were the lower life forms. Adam looked down the path to the lake for Tony who seemed to be studying any and everything that caught his attention. "If you two will keep an eye on Tony, I'll set the bags down by the lodge and find my coat." Bruce nodded and the couple headed off after Tony who was now down by the water's edge.

"How the hell did he do this?" Tony asked as they approached. He was looking at the large boulders that led out into the lake and studying how Adam had arranged them a little differently from the originals.

"Good question," Natasha said. "I think you're supposed to be the guys figuring that out at some point."

Dropping his voice, Tony asked, "I find this really flattering in a way, but why did he make this of all places?"

"Isn't that obvious? To have a safe, pleasant place to be when he wasn't the Hulk. He started with our childhood home in Dayton, then Nat and mine's apartment at the tower, the Bartons' farm, and then this place. There are others, but these locations are where he likes to be," Bruce concluded.

Tony nodded with understanding, "Then I really am honored."

"Good, because this whole place is pretty fragile. Do not even think about exploiting it or him. Do you understand?" Bruce emphasized. He felt like he needed to give his friend the "shotgun speech" or "shovel talk" because there was a real potential for treating Adam like a resource or an asset and abusing him for what he could make and do. He wanted it clear that Adam wasn't the golden goose.

"Got it," Tony said, deciding not to be offended by Bruce's protectiveness; in fact, the engineer wholeheartedly agreed. He stroked his chin. "I hope your cousin Jenn is up for some interdimensional law because this place may require a treaty or something to protect it."

"That's not a bad idea," Natasha added. "Let's bring it up with Adam before long and put it on the to-do list." Both men nodded in agreement. Bruce had said very little to Jenn about Adam yet. That was going to be an interesting conversation.

"I don't know about you two, but before we have to go, I want to have a look off the end of that last big rock," Tony said and jumped to the top of the first boulder in the string. Natasha laughed at him and followed.

Bruce shook his head, "I've been out there plenty of times. Don't fall in." He had on dress shoes with slick soles, so he wasn't about to be daring fate over a body of water. The truth was, he also wanted to talk to Adam a moment. He didn't have to wait long for his brother to emerge from the lodge and lay a gray coat across the back of the bench near the door. Bruce wondered why Adam had been so insistent about getting a coat he probably wasn't going to use, but he had other questions.

Adam jogged down the path to join him on the rocky section of beach, shaking his head as he watched Tony and Natasha making their way out to the end of the rock chain. "So where is _your_ sense of adventure?"

"On the bedroom floor, back in Cincinnati with my cross-trainers," Bruce said.

Adam nodded. "You could just take your fancy Sunday shoes off or I'll make you a pair."

"Nah, I wanted to check and see how you were doing. You're burning some serious Gamma to pack in the details here," Bruce noted with a wave of his arm. "That has to cost you something."

"Not really. Once I start things up, they run on their own momentum; then, they go back to be recycled. Otherwise, I would really be overrun with what I like to make. The birds will last longer than the crickets or fireflies because I put more energy into them, but all of it has its own kind of ecology. Before you ask, no, I didn't make them to be 'real', but feel free to make a philosophical case for it because I've read enough Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov to know better. They're not robots."

"As long as they stay here and are accounted for, I don't think there will be a problem. No, my point was, you don't need to put on a show for any of us, especially if it's costing you energy and other resources. Don't feel like you have to impress Nat or especially Tony because they already respect you. Adam, you've earned your place several times over."

Adam was generally easygoing, but he still had a very healthy ego. "Both you and Hulk cast very big shadows."

"Ones that you'll eclipse soon enough. Now, what's going on? You've been acting odd since your little tête-à-tête with Nat. What has you so keyed up?"

Adam chewed the inside of his lips for a moment. He hated having to segregate secrets—even good ones—out from what he could talk about with Bruce. "I'm kind of getting some of my own medicine, I guess. That wasn't just a dream she had, it was a message, and I'm pretty sure I'm the one who sent it back with her."

Bruce nodded. "Well, it's not by any means the first disturbing nightmare she's had, but you're certainly right that it was different."

"No, Bru," Adam interrupted. "It's more than that. She let me see and feel most of it, and she told me more about what I didn't see, which was edited out. The important part felt like reading a document that was half redacted. It was edited down to an imperative— _Find Gorna_ —and an image of my stone with the map half burnt out and most of the rest smoldering. 'Anna's light was gone, and Tasha said there was a third that had also been there, but it was burned out." This was bothering him as much as Bruce's "death."

"Oh, Adam," Bruce reached out and touched his brother's shoulder. "I honestly hadn't picked up on this from what she told me."

"You and Stephen were gone, too—just in case you hadn't noticed that part." He wasn't trying to give Bruce an anxiety attack, but the scientist seemed to be avoiding the potential seriousness of the message. They couldn't afford to have Bruce slip into disassociating right now. He needed him firing on all brain cells.

Bruce could see Adam was getting more and more frustrated with him, but he wasn't sure what to say. He'd seen plenty of weirdness before, but he was having a hard time believing this was really a message from down the time stream. "I don't think this is something to get worked up over. Nat and I have killed each other in our own nightmares before, so I don't find me being dead in her dreams that shocking anymore."

"I'm pretty sure it's something bigger than Tasha that's going to kill you. I was supposed to die, and you wouldn't let me. I was really angry that you did that. Bru, you may have been without me before, but I've never truly been without you . . . even when we didn't get along."

"It's okay, this was just a dream, Adam. It was a disturbing one, but it was still just . . ."

Adam rather forcefully took Bruce's hand off his shoulder and pressed it between his own two hands. "You're not listening to me. I can show you, but I don't want to dump information on you like the first time."

Bruce had to agree with that sentiment. "Do you think you have a better handle on it now? I'm still sorting some of that data dump chaos out."

"I've learned how to slow things down, and I'm not tired at the moment. I just want you to look at the last few minutes."

"No, don't withhold anything. If you're going to do it, run the dream through from the beginning, so I have all the data possible," Bruce insisted.

"Okay, we'll go nice and easy," Adam said, and he stepped in close, placing both hands on the sides of his brother's temples while Bruce grasped Adam's forearms. Adam felt his brother's breathing and heartbeat, so he calmed himself and synced up. He kept his mental touch light and gentle, using all his restraint to hold everything in order. This time, Bruce made the effort to meet him half way, stringing the images out like clothes on a line to dry as they came to him. Bruce played them through and looked at each again before opening his eyes and stepping back from his brother. He took a moment to let his mind clear. "You're right, Adam. The last one has been tampered with. Nice scar and sideburns, by the way," he added with a snort. "Let me think about this a while. It seems like there are steps to follow to decode the instructions."

Tony and Natasha were slowly making their way back to shore along the chain of rocks and laughing about something. It was nice to hear them laugh. Bruce stepped in close to Adam again and hugged him hard before he retreated a step to look at him. "You know, I find the idea that I could die and not take you with me oddly comforting. I know you don't like the possibility of me taking one for the team, as Steve would put it, but if anything happens to me, I want you to go on and not second guess me or yourself." Adam looked miserable, but he finally nodded. He had to believe they'd find a way to prevent this. "Now, may I have a quick look at your device?" Bruce asked him. Adam brought the dark rock out of his pocket and handed it to his brother. Bruce tried not to slip too far into lecture mode as he examined it. "Parts of this mystery are going to take some time to become clear, but if what we saw is 'future you,' Adam, my guess is Nixian patterns have influenced your method or approach to organization, so it would make sense for you to arrange your reasoning according to that culture's ways of thinking more so than you do at present."

Adam nodded in agreement. "That would be sensible if I spent significant time in that culture or studied it."

Bruce continued, "From what you've told me, this stone likely is set up with a scaffolded progression, so you may only access what functions you have earned or unlocked as your skills progress. They should build one on top of the other, so you probably can't access them out of order. I think your difficulty with the stone is you're trying to skip a necessary step or skill you've overlooked." Bruce rubbed his thumb over the rock's surface, trying to imagine what would come after Adam summoning 'Anna with it. "I think once you get your steps in order, you'll be able to move on and maybe apply it as a tool in your search for Gorna. Well, that's my best guess at what 'future you' was trying to get across to present you."

"Wait," Adam murmured. Something important clicked into place. "Let me see it." He took the stone back and held it. "I really do need an owner's manual or an index. I used earth to make this rock. 'Anna used water to travel here. I've been trying to use air to communicate when what I need is fire to unlock its guide."

He held the stone between his hands and pressed them to his chest. Adam sensed the skills and planning that he'd put into the stone's construction and the magic and hope with which 'Anna had enspelled it to make it a device for him. He slowly pulled on his heart's fire and then the Gamma in his bones as he gradually brought the heat into the stone. It took all of his skills and patience to focus the magic and define what he needed. At last, there was a small but quite audible cracking sound like a large egg's shell giving way. Adam opened his hands and looked at the emerging orange and green glowing symbols around the object's uneven edge. They rotated like a marquee crawl line around the sides before settling into place and dimming considerably. This was definitely a spell that was activated in stages or perhaps a series of spells like a ladder. Either way, it probably didn't matter at the moment, but it might reveal something about how it had been made.

Bruce stared at the stone in Adam's hands and smiled proudly, "Big Guy, I think you just leveled up." Tony and Natasha had been talking as they walked up to the brothers, but they grew silent when they saw something was happening.

Adam laughed, "Now what do I do?" The device in his hands pulsed and hummed almost like a silenced cell phone. "Oh, boy! Let's hope it swipes left." He tried running his finger over the top surface, and a column of orange light shown upward and an androgynous gold face appeared. It's black eyes quickly settled on Adam.

"Aspirant Adam Hulk Banner, I am Horicon. I am the guide for the Finitor you possess. I am here at your calling."

"Way to go, Adam, you've found its Siri function," Tony said with a grin as he patted him on the shoulder.

Adam smiled but didn't turn away from the projection. "Welcome, Horicon. Would you tell me what is a Finitor?" he asked.

"A Finitor may be many things. It is a device for testing, but it is also a tool to aid you and monitor your journey's progress."

"What am I progressing toward?" Adam wondered.

"That will be determined by you, your sponsor, your talents, and your limitations. Some would call it your destiny or fate."

"Who is my sponsor?"

"Nyxianna Ariadne, current Ruler of Nix. She made the request and cast the spell."

"How might I contact my sponsor?" he asked, hoping he was getting somewhere closer to finding Gorna.

That brought on a pause that left the face gazing blankly downward with its eyes closed. Adam looked at the others, not certain how to proceed. "Give it a few moments. You're doing fine," Natasha encouraged him. A few seconds later and the face reanimated.

"I have identified more than one possibility, so your choice will be a test of your judgment. You are not currently advanced enough to construct a scrying mirror, but you could search for one in Earth's reality. Or, you could activate the Finitor's full communicative function; however, it requires an oath and a payment."

"What kind of oath and payment?"

"An oath not to misuse the function for purposes damaging to your sponsor or her people. One initial blood payment is required before you use the function to create the spell."

"Holy moly, it's like an in-app purchase," Tony whispered and Natasha shushed him.

"How much blood is required?" Adam was willing to go as high as it took if it didn't kill him and the blood itself was destroyed in the spell.

"Less than five milliliters in your Earth measurements—approximately the same amount as a standard blood sample."

"Will the blood be destroyed?"

"It will be transmuted, so it is effectively 'destroyed' by converting it to mystic energy."

"I would like to take this option."

Horicon bowed its head. "You have chosen wisely, Aspirant. First, swear by the Vishanti and the Nine Moons and what you hold dear that you will not misuse the communicative functions of your Finitor against your sponsor or deliberately cause her or her people harm or injury. So swear you, Adam Hulk Banner?"

"I swear," he said solemnly, even if he didn't know about the Nine Moons yet.

"Understand that the spell will fail if you break this oath. Now, hold the Finitor in your left palm." Adam adjusted the stone to just his left hand. "Do you swear this oath, seal it with your blood, and give the stone its due amount? If so, answer, _Yes_."

"Yes!" he said, and in the center of his palm there was an immediate stinging draw and pull that was quickly gone. Adam gingerly switched the stone to his right hand. There was a whitish sigil that looked like an elaborate letter 'C' inside his left palm.

"Look there," Bruce said pointing to an identical symbol that was now glowing green on the side of the stone.

"Horicon, how do I use this function?" Adam asked.

"Touch the function's symbol and your sponsor's life light at the same time with the intention of contacting her. If she is not immediately available, she will contact you at her earliest convenience."

"Thank you, Horicon," Adam said, and the guide's head bowed in acknowledgment as the small column of light dissipated like smoke. Adam turned the stone, the Finitor as it was apparently called, in his hand and noted there was now an 'H' in the same elaborate script on the device's side, presumably for Horicon, and he showed it to Bruce, Natasha, and Tony.

"It's very convenient that it's adapted to our language," the scientist mused, concern still present in his tone. "Well, are you going to call 'Anna?"

"What's our time looking like?" Adam asked.

"Like we need to get back to the apartment, so I can start chugging all that water," Natasha replied.

"Okay, I'll wait till we get there."

"Time to move then," Tony said brightly, and they walked back up the path to the lodge and retrieved their things from the bench. Adam opened a portal to Nat and Bruce's apartment foyer. Since his brother was busy, Bruce grabbed Adam's coat and carried it through with the box he'd received from their cousin Richard. Tony was the last one to step into the apartment after he'd done one last 360 to look around.

Adam grinned, "Don't worry, Tony. We'll be back for a real tour soon enough."

"That was indescribably . . . _amazing_ isn't a strong enough word. Bud, we are going to do some mind-blowing things if you want to work together."

"That's a definite possibility," Adam said as he closed the portal, "but no deal closing today, okay? There's just too much going on."

A few minutes later, Bruce was in the kitchen lining up the six glasses of water for Natasha who was dutifully quaffing them down after having taken her last "pit stop" before the doctor's office.

"With all these libations to the ultrasound deity, it's too bad Thor isn't here to cheer you on," Tony quipped.

"Not that he doesn't make a good cheerleader, but we seriously do not want me laughing and peeing on myself," Natasha said quite soberly. Three glasses were empty, and she soon set the fourth one down on the counter. Bruce rubbed her back to encourage her, and Nat let out a burp that was too large to ignore. Adam and Tony laughed, and Bruce had to bite the inside of his lips not to do the same.

"I hope that made more room because you have to be running out of space," Tony surmised as he looked at the last two glasses. "You're not that large of a person, Nat." She raised an eyebrow, sensing a note of challenge.

"Now you've done it, Tony. You've engaged her competition mode," Bruce teased as he put the empties in the dishwasher rack. Natasha gave him a look as well. "Oh, no, I'm the one with plenty of faith in the capacity of your bladder and your stubbornness. Don't lump me in with the unbeliever there."

"Me either," said Adam remembering something related happening on a mission. He could appreciate how hard it was for her to wriggle in and out of that damn leather cat suit, so at least she didn't have to do that today. As Hulk, he'd stood guard for her a few times under threat of death if he said anything when they'd been on a long mission with no access to facilities. Adam intended to take that information with him to the grave. As she'd told him, "This is what happens when just men designed uniforms . . . if you are lucky enough to have a uniform." She'd been quite clear on that point. Having been "big, green, and buck ass nude" plenty of times, he felt all the more empathetic. There was no way he was questioning her will or her capacity.

Natasha rolled her eyes and snorted, "Some men never learn." She was slowing down, but she managed to get the fifth and finally the sixth glass down.

"It doesn't happen often, but I think I have heard of water poisoning," Tony said, getting one last jab in.

"Stark, if I puke, I'm going to take you down with me," she said flatly. The engineer gave her a toothy grin in response. He was glad to do his part.

"Remember, Tony, you just got the restored Caddy back," Bruce warned. "Happy will not be _happy_ if she loses either kind of continence in the car, and neither will I!"

Tony chuckled and Nat stuck her tongue out at him. Adam had moved to the far side of the living room next to the piano and ignored the verbal sparring the three were doing to keep their nerves in check. "Friday, I'm going to try and contact someone with a device that uses unknown technology, so I thought I better give you a head's up," he informed the Interface.

"I do appreciate your warning me, Mr. Banner," Friday lilted in her Celtic accent. "Let me know if I can be of assistance."

"Will do." He took a deep breath and touched the 'C' sigil and 'Anna's gold life light as Horicon had instructed. He could feel a hum of energy go through him that resonated in his chest as he breathed—Air! He probably should have alerted the others before he did it, but no one seemed to have noticed. Adam wondered how long it took a message to go from one side of the galaxy to another. He set the stone on top of the piano so he could pace, but he didn't have long to wait. A gold column of light appeared above the Finitor and 'Anna came into focus. She was wearing a long, formal-looking robe that he guessed was blue and her long pale hair was done up in loose braids. She smiled as soon as her eyes settled on him.

"Congratulations, my Love, you've exceed my expectations again. The Horicon notified me just a little while ago that you'd succeeded at unlocking the guide and completed the communication component. Well done, Adam!"

"Thank you. I've missed you, too," he teased before sobering up a bit. "I actually have some other much more serious motivations for reaching you."

"You said you were goal-oriented, so that doesn't surprise me, Love," she said fondly. "All right, I'm between meetings and in a secure spot. Tell me, what you need."

"You may think this is a little crazy, but I'm following up on a dream that my friend Natasha had." Adam quickly explained the dream and its circumstances. To his relief, 'Anna listened intently and didn't try to dismiss his concerns. When he'd finished talking, Adam looked around, and Bruce, Natasha, and Tony had quit their friendly bickering and joined him near the piano.

'Anna had her arms crossed and was frowning as she looked downward in thought. "Gorna isn't a terribly common name, but I have almost four hundred people who could be considered part of my household since that encompasses the whole court. Give me a little time to investigate. We're actually in the middle of some negotiations, and I'll have to go back to the meeting table in a little bit." She tilted her head and smiled as the trio behind Adam came into her field of view.

"Before you go, may I introduce you to my brother Bruce, Natasha Romanoff, and our friend Tony Stark?" Adam said as he gestured to each person.

Even through the hologram, it was clear the woman's eyes were twinkling with pleasure. "I'm honored to make your acquaintances. I look forward to meeting you in person before long." Her eyes settled on Bruce and Natasha, "I understand congratulations are in order twice over for the two of you. May I offer my best wishes and a blessing on all of you?"

"Thank you," Natasha and Bruce both said together. "Thank you for looking into this, too," Natasha added. "It may be absolutely nothing, but I would rest easier knowing one way or another."

"Then I'll put one of my assistants on it as soon as possible," 'Anna assured her. "Don't dismiss dreams, especially during 'interesting times' such as these. Even if it's not prophetic, they are windows into what worries us. If I can put your fears to rest, it's the least I can do, Ms. Romanoff."

Tony had been quietly observing up to this point, but something the regal female had said peaked his interest. "Pardon me, your majesty, I don't mean to take up too much of your time, but you said, 'interesting times'. Is there something we on Earth should be concerned about?"

'Anna focused on Tony and paused a moment, weighing what to say. "Am I right that your alter ego is Iron Man, Mr. Stark?"

"Yes, that's who I am," he said.

"Then I will say this in confidence, something out of the norm is going on in Asgard and it's causing problems in its protected territories, of which my planet Nix is one. Your friend the Odinson would do well to stay closer to home and listen to his people's concerns."

"Are you being directly threatened?" Adam asked, apprehension and protectiveness edging his voice.

"Not directly, my Love, but news of your existence and the rumor of your potential coming has brought certain parties with whom we had long sought to make alliances back to the negotiating table. That's why I'm here." She gestured around her. "Peace and friendship with Nix has suddenly become a more valuable commodity thanks in large part to your existence." Her wolfish smile indicated she was both proud of him and pleased to see others get their comeuppance.

Adam's heart swelled with satisfaction at the thought he'd helped her and then almost dropped into his boots. What were they expecting of him? He was no savior, green or otherwise. He had no regrets about being involved with 'Anna—his heart said being with her was right, but he hadn't expected just rumors of him to make such an impact in a faraway place or on such a scale. He frowned, "I hope that's a good thing in the long run, 'Anna."

"I know you're uneasy about this. I wish they'd been motivated to work with us before now, but politics are politics, my beloved, and a careful leader knows how to use the opportunities she's given." He could tell she was being honest and not trying to hide her agenda or be dismissive. "I warned you there would be repercussions in my part of the universe for what the two of us do. In this case, they are to my people's advantage; it's my duty to make sure we use them wisely."

"I understand, 'Anna. I just don't want to promise you or your people something I can't deliver."

"For what it's worth, they aren't looking for you to save them. That's Nyxianna's job. She's my Avatar. They expect other things from you," she said with a coy smirk.

Tony almost had to slap a hand over his mouth to avoid blurting something out. If Bruce hadn't been between them, Natasha would have stomped on his toes.

Adam ignored the potential rudeness stirring behind him. "Really?" he asked her.

"Yes, _really_. The Bells of Nix rang, so there is no denying the Three-in-One exists or that I have found you." She chuckled, "When I got back, our tabloid headlines read something like 'Our champion has found her sword and claimed him,' so don't be shocked by the media's objectification and intrusiveness. Just an image of you would command a high price." She shot a quick look at Tony.

"I'm not surprised. It's just a much bigger splash than I'd thought it would make."

"It does no good to fret over the situation before the time comes, if it comes at all, for you to face it," she said.

He nodded, "It's a lot to take in, but I'm sure you're doing the right thing for your people. I'm glad you're seeing some benefit." Like it or not, he as clearly going to have to get used to Nixian politics. "I know you need to go, so we won't keep you longer. Thank you for helping us."

"I'll be back to you as soon as I can with any news of Gorna," she said with a reassuring smile. "It's been nice to meet everyone." She looked at the others and bowed her head and they acknowledged her in return. Then she looked at Adam longingly, "Keep working with Horicon, my Love. It's there to help you. I am proud."

He smiled and silently mouthed, "I love you," so the others wouldn't see or hear.

She giggled and gave him a wink as her image dissipated into smoke and was gone.

Tony wasted no time in clapping Adam on the shoulder, "My friend you are definitely dating above your paygrade."

"Maybe," he said with a shrug, "but what she's interested in has nothing to do with an income."

"Ha! Of course not! It's obvious he wants you for a baby-daddy!" Tony said with a hoot.

However, his merriment was quickly cut short when Natasha finally punched him in the arm. "Shut up!" She was about ready to throttle him, even if it was the engineer's way of coping with the escalating scale of the situation. The fact that she needed to pee so bad she could hardly stand still didn't help her temper.

"It's okay, Tasha. That might be the end result, but there's more to it than that," Adam said a bit sadly as he ignored Tony's teasing. Unfortunately, the part of him that wanted to leave and be with 'Anna was getting stronger and harder to ignore. He could hear Raven's voice in the back of head squawking, "Don't let her touch you!"

Bruce stepped in front of his brother and made eye contact, placing his hands on both Adam's shoulders. "You've done all you can for now. It's in her capable hands. Give it a little time."

Before Adam could answer, someone knocked at the door. Natasha opened it for Pepper and Happy. After she'd introduced the two men who'd not met before, Hap stared at Adam for an uncomfortably long time after shaking his hand. "You are definitely related to Bruce," the chauffer finally said with a solemn nod.

"Right, we're brothers," Adam agreed. "We are definitely related."

"So, are you the Hulk or are you both able to Hulk out?" Hap asked.

"I'm usually Hulk, but if we're both in the same dimension, I think we could both be Hulk," Adam reasoned from the results of yesterday's experiments.

"Would you both look alike?" Hap asked with a thoughtful expression.

"I'm sure we look pretty similar."

"That could get confusing," the former boxer noted.

"Then don't get us both angry any time soon," Adam said good humoredly. He decided he rather liked Happy.

After a few minutes' worth of debate, Bruce put the "nano mask" on over his head, and Natasha adjusted the mesh so it wasn't too claustrophobic before activating the veil. Pepper worked with Sean the most, so it took a few more tweaks till the likeness was up to her standards. Bruce then thought to ask if Natasha had gotten Sean's permission to use his likeness, and she mumbled something vaguely about it being in the small print of his job application on file somewhere. Bruce did not approve of that because of the rather shaky ethical grounds, but the departure time was getting too close to find another suitable person to scan and there wasn't time to track down Sean on his day off.

"What if we run into Sean?" he pointed out.

"Then there will be a very strong sense of déjà vu," Natasha replied between gritted teeth. "Quit complaining, Bruce. We need to go."

Happy elbowed Adam who'd put on his new gray leather coat, "Not going to mistake him for you now, hmm?"

Adam smiled, "Or the other way around."

Soon, they all took the elevator down to the lowest level of the parking garage where the large, shiny Cadillac was waiting. On the way, Happy proudly showed them he could start the car even before they were halfway finished with the elevator ride by using his StarkPhone. On habitual alert, Natasha stepped off the elevator first and scanned the area. It wasn't that she didn't trust the building's security or Hap, but their little run-in after the previous appointment visit was preying on her mind. Nick hadn't put in an appearance yet, and she was getting anxious about the lack of success they were having at ID-ing the two mystery assailants. She'd discreetly picked up an extra handgun and a few other supplies at the apartment just in case. It was freezing in the cavernous garage, which wasn't helping her bladder one bit.

While Happy was showing off the car's renovations, Pepper looked at Adam who was scrutinizing the layout of the garage posted beside the elevator doors. "What are you studying, Adam?"

"Just trying to account for all the square footage," he said as he turned to speak to her. "Isn't there a tornado or fallout shelter down here?"

"You know, that's something you need to bring up with Tony. There were plans for some specifically-purposed rooms with a lot of reinforcement, but there were changes he could tell you more about than I can . . . if it's about what I think it's about," she prompted.

Adam nodded, but didn't choose to elaborate. "Did you get your reading done last night?"

"I'm down to the last few chapters," she said, patting her purse where the paperback was stashed. "I'm sorry I missed meeting 'Anna."

"Yah, me too, but there should be other times," he assured her.

She took a moment to look at his leather coat. "Where did you get this, by the way? It's gorgeous. Vintage?"

"Bruce saw one in a movie back in college in the 80s, and I admired it, so when I thought I might need a coat for protection, I went ahead and made one close to it," he said matter-of-factly. This was one of the few times he'd made a piece of clothing Bruce hadn't worn, so he felt a little proud Pepper had noticed and liked it. He'd been studying how to manifest a defensive shield, so he'd woven some protective spells into its making. He also wanted to see if it would stand up to some testing since the opportunity had presented itself.

"That is amazing, Adam. I think I know the film, too," Pepper said as she ran her fingers over the garment's details.

"Good, because I never did know the title. Something with vampires and monsters and a dance club seduction scene."

" _Fright Night_. It's a modern horror classic," Tony said as he walked up and gave Pepper a hug from behind. "We'll have to watch that with _Lost Boys_ as a double feature for a movie night once you're settled. Just us big kids. Speaking of which, you better get in the Caddy, Pep, before Nat springs a leak."

She turned and kissed Tony on the cheek. "We should be back in sixty to ninety minutes. You two stay out of trouble."

Tony just looked at Adam and grinned like a shark.

For appearance's sake, Bruce sat up in front with Hap since that's where Sean would have sat. Pepper and Natasha were in the back, getting toasty and catching up on what had happened in the last 24 hours. Natasha had long since texted Pepper to keep quiet about the couple from the doctor's office, so Bruce and Tony wouldn't worry while they were out of town. Bruce still had his keynote to deliver, so she didn't want to bother him with it just yet. As she kept half an eye on the men in the front, it occurred to Natasha that she should have reminded Hap, but now was a little too late.

"Doc, I must say your brother seems like a pretty okay guy, even if I did just meet him," Happy said to Bruce.

"Yes, he's a very nice person and a good brother. I missed him a lot when we were out of touch."

"Will he be staying here for a while with you two?"

"I hope, but he's still making up his mind. We would like to have him stay," Bruce said.

Hap turned a corner and maneuvered into the right lane. Traffic was light, and they made good time. "So, I imagine you and Ms. Romanoff are getting pretty excited about the baby, right?"

"Yes, we certainly are," Bruce said with a grin.

"Something you might want to think about as far as décor would be a farm motif. It can be both whimsical and educational."

Bruce kept listening and nodding appropriately as the chauffer outlined his argument in favor of Old MacDonald and the importance of agriculture. "There are a lot of intersections between science and growing things, Doc," Hap concluded, and Bruce agreed with him.

Right on schedule, the car pulled up in front of the correct building, and Bruce played Sean's part by jumping out quickly to open the door for Pepper and Natasha. The sun was getting higher and bright, but it was still cold. The mesh felt cold against his face and neck. He stepped quickly past the women to open the lobby door as well, but he was cut off by the burley doorman who'd just emerged from inside. Bruce stepped aside to let Natasha and Pepper walk past them, but as he started to follow, the doorman tapped his chest with a stubby forefinger to hold him up. "You're supposed to be at the tower. That's the plan," the larger man said in a raspy whisper of a voice rough as sandpaper.

Bruce did his best not to look as alarmed as he suddenly was. "Change in plans," he mumbled and stepped around his questioner and followed the women into the elevator. His mind was racing. He didn't want to say anything until they were someplace secure. At least they were alone in the elevator. As soon as the doors shut, he dared to look over at Natasha to see if she'd caught what had just transpired. She gave him a side-eyed glance and pulled out Tony's "pen of silence". "Did you catch that?" he asked once the dampening field engaged.

"What?" asked Pepper.

"Yes. Please hold this a minute, Pepper," Natasha said as she handed off the device and then pulled out her phone and texted Nick. "Taken care of. Don't worry about it."

"Really?" Bruce asked.

"Yes, really," she assured him as a text from Nick chimed in.

"So, we're just going to proceed like nothing's amiss?" he asked.

"What is going on?" demanded Pepper.

"I'm afraid Sean is going to have a very bad day," Natasha deadpanned.

"You mean like the first two?" Pepper asked.

"Yes, like the first two," Natasha said, trying to sound casual despite longing to visit a restroom. "Well, I guess there were three if you count the washed-up columnist in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody."

Bruce turned to look at both women, "What other two or three?"

Natasha shook her heard. "I'll explain when we get the chance somewhere that's more secure. It's nothing to worry about," she assured him. It struck Natasha as rather amusing to see Bruce's expression of I-know-you're-bullshitting-me doubt on Sean's face. "Stick with the plan, my good man," she said with a smug little smile.

The elevator door opened, and they stepped out into the hall. Natasha and Pepper went into the doctor's office to sign in and Bruce continued down the hall to the family-designated restroom and locked the door. It only took him a moment to deactivate and remove the vail. He took off his peacoat, pulled off his lightweight sweater, straightened his shirt, ran his hand through his hair, put the coat back on, and pulled a red scarf out of the pocket. Voila, no more Sean for a bit. Bruce folded and rolled the sweater and tucked it under his arm before cautiously opening the door and retreating back to the doctor's office.

Bruce held the door open for a young couple he guessed were less than a month out from delivering. The knot that he'd been working his stomach into loosened a bit. He tried to imagine Natasha that far along, and he smiled to himself. How did he get so fortunate? Nat and Pepper were seated in a corner where they could keep an eye on all of the waiting area and face both the entrance and interior doors. He put the matter of Sean and the unknowns out of his head and decided to just be happy for a moment.

He sat down facing the women with his back to the rest of the waiting area. He noted "the pen" was out, so it was safe to talk. Natasha handed him a Yankees ball cap from her handbag. "Are you trying to get me disowned?" he asked with an eye roll, but he put on the cap, bad manners or not. Natasha just smiled and cocked an eyebrow at him. He looked over at Pepper who was holding back a snicker behind her hand. "So help me, if either of you take a picture . . ."

"What's wrong with the Yanks? You're supposed to be undercover," Natasha teased. "I could have got you one with the Pirates or Red Socks or maybe _the Cardinals_."

"Traitor!" he growled. He'd have brought the cap Rich gave him if knew she was going to do this.

"Well, the idea is you're supposed to blend in," she said nonchalantly.

He looked over at Pepper for backup and found none. "Dude, don't pull me into this. She's trying to watch your back."

"Okay," Bruce said leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "What happened with Sean?"

"Nick has him, and that's all you need to know for now," the former assassin informed him. Pepper looked as if she couldn't make up her mind whether to be more angry or disappointed with the apparent betrayal just yet.

"How about the economy-sized doorman downstairs?" he asked.

"Him, they are still working on, but he definitely left the building," she reassured them.

The door leading to the examination rooms opened and a tanned dark-headed nurse with orange and yellow tropical print scrubs opened the door. "Ms. Rushman?" she asked as she looked in their direction.

Natasha was more than ready to get this over with and say good-bye to 48 ounces of unwanted water, so she quickly answered the woman. They were soon behind the door and the nurse, who turned out to be named Constance, took Natasha's vitals before leading them back to an examination room. Bruce collected her handbag and shoes, but Natasha got to keep on her clothing though it had to be pulled out of the way. Bruce laid her things in a chair with her handbag and stood beside her, rubbing her back and shoulders. She leaned into him, snuggling her head into his chest, and he kissed the top of her head.

Bruce looked around the examination room and swallowed hard. The standard equipment was all here from the big clunky padded table Natasha was seated on to the sink and cabinets and anatomy posters, but there were more pieces of electronic equipment and ways of gathering and collecting data than the room in the college clinic he'd visited with Betty almost 13 years ago. The 3D sonogram was just coming out on the market, but as graduate students, it wasn't something they could afford for vanity's sake or otherwise. They'd been at the fourteen-week mark when they lost the baby. It hadn't broken them up, but they'd slowed down plans to get married. They had graduated and gotten positions at Culver University then gone to work for the government on her father's Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project. Then came the accident, and it was too late. He reminded himself he'd made peace with this. Bruce realized he'd been holding his breath and breathed deep as he shoved the memories to the back of his head. This time would be different, and everything would be okay. He was going to do everything in his power to make certain of it.

There was a knock at the door, and a tall dark-skinned woman with short, neatly-cropped, gray hair stepped into the room. "Hello again, Natasha and Pepper, and I think I know who this is," she said, as she addressed Bruce.

"Hi, I'm Bruce Banner," he said as they shook hands. "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Vining?"

"Right, Grace Vining. It's a pleasure, Dr. Banner," she said returning his smile. "I'm glad you could make it today. Since someone's bladder is probably not too happy, we'll get right to the sonogram. Today, we were able to get you into the room with the right equipment already in place." There was another knock at the door and the same technician from Thursday's visit came into the room. "This is Kit Katzenberg, and she'll be doing the tech honors again. We're going to be doing a standard pelvic ultrasound. The 3D is available if you want it, but frankly I'd recommend waiting until the fetus is larger before having one."

Bruce looked at Natasha, "Let's just wait on the 3D. They really aren't that useful for diagnostics, and everything I've read warns they can agitate the baby."

Natasha nodded, "Let's maybe wait till he or she wants the car keys before we do that then."

Dr. Vining had Natasha lay back on the table and adjusted her clothing away from her stomach. The tech turned on the monitor and applied the blessedly warmed gel to her belly. "This piece of equipment is a transducer, and I'm going to use it to get pictures of your womb and pelvic area," Kit told her as she held up something about the size and shape as a computer mouse.

"We're also going to see if we can get an idea where the clamp from the failed tubal ligation has settled," Dr. Vining added. "Did you get all six glasses of water down?" she asked Natasha.

"Every single ounce," she said with a very put-upon look.

Bruce squeezed her hand and nodded, "She certainly did."

"Good," said Kit. "That will help with the image. This may feel a little funny, but I'll try and not put any more pressure on your bladder than I have to." She applied the transducer and Natasha could feel the waves of the ultrasound. Bruce was watching the viewing monitor closely and his hand tightened on hers as the image zeroed in on a fetus kicking and moving its limbs. Natasha glanced up at him, and Bruce was biting his lower lip and swallowing hard. He looked down at her and smiled tenderly, bringing her hand up to his lips and kissing her fingers.

They both looked back at the monitor, and Dr. Vining explained that since they'd just taken measurements two days ago, they'd let the radiologist handle the analysis and concentrate on gathering as much information as possible. Kit turned up the sound as she used the stethoscope function, so they could hear the heartbeat. It was just over 150 beats per minute, but Kit soon looked over at Dr. Vining who then looked back at the tech who in turn moved the transducer again slowly from side to side on Natasha's stomach and stopped on the lower right quadrant. Everyone stared at the monitor.

Pepper had been exceptionally quiet, but now she asked, "Did anyone else think they heard more than one heartbeat?" Bruce glanced back at her, not daring to say anything. He'd heard it, too, but he'd thought it was some sort of echo at first. This time it was Natasha who squeezed his hand as the baby on the monitor shifted and a second little head and spinal column became visible. Kit moved the instrument again and now they could clearly see the shape of the twin emerge from the inky black, squirming and moving just like her or his sibling.

"You must be after my job, Pepper," Dr. Vining said with a grin.

Bruce leaned down and kissed Natasha on the lips, and she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down to hug him close. Pepper let loose an elated squeak and hugged them both. The tech stood back for a second and smiled along with the obstetrician. They'd seen it all before, even if it didn't get old. Pepper finally backed off, sniffling a bit, and after a few more happy kisses, Natasha let her fiancé stand up straight again.

"How about we go ahead and get the measurements taken on smol bean two?" Kit suggested. Natasha settled back and Bruce pulled his glasses out as if to help him read the small print on the display. This medical specialty might have been outside the training he had accumulated over the years, but he'd gone over the basics and he was a quick study with technology. Before the professionals were done with their basic analysis, he was frowning a bit. "The second fetus is definitely smaller than the first. Is that problematic?" he asked.

Dr. Vining held up an index finger for him to wait a moment before she spoke. "I don't think that's going to be problem, but it is something we're going to keep an eye on. These are fraternal twins, so the smaller one probably is just a few days behind. I've checked to make sure the placentas are both in a good location. Since they're dizygotic, there's no sharing of a blood supply."

"What's the heartrate for the smaller twin?" he asked.

"Close to 170. The higher heartrate would be an indicator that twin two is less mature than twin one," Dr. Vining explained.

Bruce nodded. He'd played midwife a few times, but not to anyone carrying twins. The reality had barely begun to sink in that these were Natasha's and his own.

"Everything looks good," Dr. Vining said as she finished going over the measurements. "I estimate the second twin is about a week younger. Let me show you cranial size for comparison." Kit shifted the instrument, so they could see the first twin more clearly.

Dr. Vining smiled as she took measurements on her display. "Everything is looking good. No signs of congenital defects."

Kit chuckled, "Oh, do you want to know the sex or keep that a surprise?" she asked.

Bruce glanced at Natasha who was looking at the larger monitor and smiling lopsidedly. "I would rather know, which is just as well since I can see why you're bringing the subject up," Bruce said with a bit of a blush. He reached over and squeezed Natasha's hand again. Both babies looked healthy, and they were having a son. Bruce felt like his heart was expanding in his chest. He had longed for her and for this for what seemed like all his life. To see that it was coming to fruition was almost overwhelming: two new miracles in their lives!

Bruce came out of his reverie and realized something wasn't quite right. Dr. Vining had taken a cranial measurement on the first baby, but when Kit moved the transducer back to Natasha's right side to get the same angle to measure the second twin, the area was completely dark. No one was panicking, but everybody was holding their breaths as Kit tried new directions of sweeps across Natasha's belly.

"Well, sometimes a fetus will shift and seem to hide from the ultrasound," Dr. Vining tried to reassure them.

"Come on, kiddo," the tech murmured. She wiped the contact surface of the instrument and started her sweeping search again. "There, we can hear your heartbeat." Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, the little being was back, right where he or she had been. All five adults breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"Kit, I think we're going to be checking the equipment," the obstetrician remarked.

"No, kidding," said Pepper. "That was kind of scary and stress inducing." She looked at Natasha and Bruce with concern.

"You're telling me," the tech replied. "I've never seen something happen quite like this before." She quickly took the measurements, so the physician could do the analysis for the second twin, then moved on to have a look at the location for fallopian tubes to make certain there were not visible abnormalities. Natasha rolled onto her side briefly as instructed. She felt like her poor bladder was about to burst. "Hang in there," the tech told her. "I'm going to see if I can find that clamp down low, and we'll be done." Kit scanned from multiple angles and shook her head. "The clamps were plastic, so they're not that easy to spot. We'll have the radiologist take a look, but we may not find the one that failed."

Natasha looked over at Dr. Vining, "Pleeeeeaaase, may I go use the restroom?" Kit was already wiping the gel off Natasha's stomach.

"Go ahead. It's directly opposite the door for a reason," Dr. Vining told her with a big smile. Natasha did not waste a moment. Bruce moved to help her, but she waved him off.

"Okay," he said throwing his hands up in surrender. He wasn't about to get between her and finding relief. Natasha hurriedly closed the door behind her.

"So, the missing clamp just sits there someplace?" Pepper asked the doctor.

Dr. Vining frowned for a moment before she answered the question. "It doesn't appear to have caused any problems so far, and it's probably been wherever it settled since it was dislodged or, I'd surmise, since it was applied incorrectly." She pulled up an image of Natasha's right fallopian tube. The internal structure was only visible because of the clamp that was still in place. Unless something caused a tube to swell, they were too thin to pick out on a normal ultrasound. "The idea is that in a tubal ligation with this type of clamp, the tube is not just held shut, but also crushed and grows shut. The clamp usually does its job within a few weeks; however, even if it functions as it's designed to _initially_ and holds the tube closed, there is still a 5% chance of pregnancy if the clamp is dislodged and the tube hasn't completely sealed or the tube manages to heal successfully," the doctor concluded.

"So, this is a type of clamp that's completely plastic, no metal at all?" Bruce asked.

"I'd have to remove it to tell you what it's composed of, but it's not dense enough to be metal, and it's not a design I've seen before, Dr. Banner. It's almost heart-shaped," she concluded. "If there is a C section, and—considering there are twins, the odds have gone up—and if she wants it removed, I'd recommend leaving it in place for now and waiting till the delivery. We might get lucky and locate the other one by that time as well," the doctor recommended.

Natasha returned halfway through Dr. Vining's explanation, just as Kit was slipping out to edit and send the images. Natasha made sure the door closed behind her and pulled out "the pen." Bruce caught her eye; he was looking at her with some concern. Natasha had texted Nick for an update while she was out of the room. Sean wasn't talking. The burley doorman was still on the loose. The one piece of good news was that Nick had cleared Grace and Kit. She smiled at Bruce and switched on the dampener.

The physician smiled at Natasha as the Avenger sat back down on the examination table and took Bruce's hand. "What questions do you have, Natasha?"

Natasha looked at Bruce, "Love, I think we need to tell Dr. Vining about Adam and some of the other things we know about that might affect the babies."

"Oh, have you had time to get started on the genetic testing?" the doctor asked Bruce.

Bruce looked a bit reluctant, but Natasha squeezed his hand, "It's okay. Nick says we're good."

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. This was costing him something, but he'd do it for his family. "Dr. Vining, please keep this in the strictest confidence," Bruce requested.

"Of course," she assured him, and he began by telling her about his twin.

 ** **End Notes:**** I'm not sure what to say except that both science and magic are a challenge to write, and this chapter had both those and ten characters with dialogue to write and two just off stage. Oh, yah, and there are definitely twins, and one is definitely a boy. If you have questions or want to talk about them below, please feel free.

 ** **Next up:**** Tony and Adam in the garage and the lab together. What could they possibly do together? No, they won't be grilling cheese. We might even get to what other characters are doing.


	61. Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Wayward Son

 **Summary:** Tony gives Adam a tour of a rather crowded basement before putting some expensive equipment to work. Natasha, Bruce, and Pepper wrap up the visit to Dr. Vining after some medical history confessions. Tony and Adam deliver some DNA samples to a third party.

 **Notes:** Time to put some Kansas on the turntable if you noticed the title. Everyone keeps their clothes on for the whole chapter. Thanks to Autumn_Froste for her impeccable Beta work and EmilyGracie for feedback. Can't do it without ya!

oo0O0oo

The garage was cold enough that Tony and Adam could see their breath in the harsh lighting while they watched the rolling fortress that was the big, black Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five disappear around a corner as it made its way up and out of the tower's parking garage with their friends headed off to the appointment with Dr. Vining.

"Before we go up to the lab, would you show me where the containment room is down here?" Adam asked. That replaced the rather predatory smile on Tony's face with a look of mild surprise.

"How did you know about that?" the engineer asked. "Did you find it out on your own or did someone tell you?"

Adam smiled slightly and shook his head, "Sorry, you just did. Don't be mad. If I were going to house a potentially volatile individual who is deathly afraid of hurting a lot of people very quickly, I'd have either a place to put him or a place to hide from him or both. Plus, you had to have accumulated a few violent enemies yourself over the years."

Tony crossed his arms over his chest, "Well, smart guy, I did think of those options in regard to you, but I decided against both of them once I got to know Bruce better." Adam's eyebrows rose in alarm. "Hey, I did think the possible scenarios through, and I reasoned that if you came out hot and bothered, you'd be headed for the outside, so trying to contain your badass self here in the tower would just make matters worse." He continued to study Adam and weighed his words with more care. "To be honest, there is a safe room, but it was in the plans long before I met your brother or you. It's there, but it's never been completely finished beyond air-raid and fallout or emergency-shelter level. The reason it's not been upgraded to 'Hulk-proof' is I trust your Bruce." Tony reached out and patted Adam's shoulder, "And now that I know you, it's clear that my gut feeling was right to trust you, too." From the look on Adam's face, the engineer could tell the magic user didn't completely agree with his optimism; however, as long as Adam stuck to words and not fists, Tony intended to make an effort to persuade this green-eyed Banner.

Adam could feel the anxiety spooling up like taunt wire in his gut. "Tony, no offence, but if both Bruce and I live here, the odds of something critical happening have more than just doubled. Also, as you just acknowledged, there are outside people and entities who are just as destructive to consider."

"I get that, Big Guy. That's why, for example, VERONICA is around. There are other measures, too, but you're probably not the one to whom I should be spilling all the beans, right?" The engineer stroked his chin and kept up his curious gaze.

"By the way, that is a really awful name," Adam said levelly as he stared back.

"What?" Tony asked with genuine puzzlement.

" _Veronica_. It's really insensitive."

"Uh, yah, I guess that's right. Bruce didn't act like he minded."

Adam gave an exasperated huff. "Would you like to be reminded of a painful circumstance and a failed relationship like that?"

Tony shrugged, "Well . . . no. I guess not."

"Would you like to explain it to Betty?" Adam persisted.

Well, he had him there. "Okay, point taken. We'll come up with a better name," Tony admitted as he fought off the temptation to roll his eyes. As he gave it more thought, maybe direct discussion like this with the Big Guy was better than two-word dialogue with a punitive follow-up. "Anyway, when it comes to someone from the outside attacking, let's just say, getting in here isn't impossible, but it'll come at an extremely high price. Certain parts of the building can be locked down and isolated, so an intruder can be dealt with pretty effectively."

"Okay. I guess I can live with that," Adam said grudgingly. "What else do you have down here in the garage area?"

"The maintenance shop for the vehicles and toy storage," Tony said matter-of-factly.

"Toys?" Adam asked with a puzzled look.

"Things that aren't 'vehicles'. A few motorcycles and stuff I've bought or made for Pep that she didn't want to keep upstairs. You know, 'stuff'?"

Adam shrugged and tried to imagine what Tony could have given Pepper that couldn't be kept in the penthouse. "Okay, would you show me the emergency shelter area? If I know where it's located, I can make a portal into that safe spot once I'm able to visualize it."

"Okay, that I can show you for certain." With more than a little relief, Tony headed for the stairwell and pointed out the shelter signage. "Just follow these four floors up to 'Ground Level' and then to the shelter. If we weren't on a coast, the shelter would be down here on Level D, but because of climate change and the likelihood of flooding with hurricanes, it's just below the ground floor, which is well above the water table and designed to be watertight in case of serious flooding."

"I guess Friday monitors all the entrances and exits and the garage and the ground floor are manned," Adam postulated.

"Yes. There are security personnel at those spots both in and out of uniform. As I said, Friday can implement a lockdown if it's needed. Are you casing the joint or just planning on sneaking out after curfew?"

"Just paranoid," Adam explained with a lopsided smile. He wasn't going to admit he'd picked up on some of Natasha's security concerns earlier, but he knew something had happened that she'd chosen not to pass along, and she was also troubled about Nick not checking in.

As they ascended the steps, someone entered the stairwell a few floors above them, and they both froze. Neither of them were supposed to be there. Tony glanced up the stairwell and quickly opened the door to the upper garage floors at Level B and Adam followed him through. Tony held the door just barely open to avoid the telltale click of the latch. Both men held their breath as whomever it was exited the stairs a level above them. "Okay, I think we're good," Tony reported, and they continued up to the same level as the person had exited. Tony cautiously opened the door to Level A, which was close to the garage entrance gate and looked out. Walking toward the booth was a medium-built man with sandy blond hair who was wearing a staff uniform and pulling on a stocking hat. Tony closed the door and let out a puff of breath.

"So, who was that?" Adam asked him.

"Unless your brother has come back early, that was Sean who shouldn't be here on his day off." Tony thought fast and pulled out his phone. "Friday, let Pep know Sean is at the parking garage entrance." He put the phone back in his pocket. "I'm sure they'll figure out how to handle that."

Several floors above them, another door opened, and both men flattened themselves instinctively against the wall. They looked at each with the same thought: taking the stairs had turned out to be a bad idea. Adam was on the verge of slipping the sling-ring on when a familiar voice boomed down the stairwell. "That better be you, Stark," Fury said with an extra note of irritation as he hurried downward.

"Just us nerds playing hooky from the science convention," Tony said with relief. "What are you doing in this increasingly crowded stairwell?"

"Looking for one of your employees."

"That wouldn't be Sean Halsey, would it?"

"That's the one."

"As I recall, he was one of yours first," Tony retorted then thought better and backed off. "He just went through this door, and I presume he's covering for a coworker and minding the garage entrance gate. Of course, I could be totally wrong about that."

Fury arrived on the same landing as the other two and studied Adam with rapidly increasing interest. Adam had kept his head down, but he quickly decided pretending to be Bruce wasn't going to work. He stood up straight and squared his shoulders. He wasn't trying to be aggressive, but he met the former spymaster's gaze steadily. "Who's your friend, Stark. This definitely isn't Dr. Banner."

"Well," Tony said, stepping between the two as the tension level rose, "the funny thing is, he is _a_ Banner." Tony looked quickly at Adam to confirm the introduction was okay. Adam nodded. "Let me introduce you to Bruce's brother Adam."

Without hesitation, Adam offered Fury his hand, and the older man took it and shook firmly, but he continued to keep his good eye on the stranger. "Pleasure," Adam noted with a tight nod. He stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to stay neutral yet not completely managing it.

"It's nice to meet Ms. Potts' mysterious dining companion. When I get done with Mr. Halsey, we're going to talk," Fury stated flatly as he looked at both of them.

"You bet," Tony said brightly and opened the reinforced steel door for him. "Do you need any help?"

"It's already on the way, thanks," Fury said as he disappeared behind the metal door.

"Well, that could have gone a lot worse," Tony noted and then he started to chuckle. "I bet Natasha will be getting a text or a phone call in the next half hour that starts with 'What the fuck?!'"

"You think he knew who I really am?" Adam asked pensively. He was trying to figure out how Fury had known he had dinner with Pepper. _Friday, maybe?_

"Well, eye color and height bump aside, you don't carry yourself the same way as your brother. Around Fury, Bruce is wound up like he's ready to jump if the guy barks. You look like you're coiled and ready to charge. That's pretty much your MO, Big Guy."

"Humph, okay," Adam knew that was true. "How did he know . . ."

"That's on the to-be-figured-out list. Nick is _THE Spymaster_. If he didn't put who you are together immediately, he will before lunch, so let's get moving. Next stop, the place of shelter." Tony and Adam climbed one floor higher and exited one level below the lobby and one above the garage at a door appropriately labeled "Ground Level Emergency Shelter." Tony quickly punched in a code to prevent the alarm from sounding as he pushed the door back with some effort. It opened onto a short and very white hallway with what looked like high tech blast doors at the end on the left and a large, open multiple-purpose area on the right with folding chairs and tables stacked against the far wall. There looked to be restrooms and other facilities further on.

Adam gazed around the space and got his bearings. He breathed deeply and reached out to get a feel for the space before he followed Tony down the hall to the impressive door. He could sense layers of metal, concrete, composites, and possibly ceramics. "You said this whole area is watertight?"

"Right, the whole level seals off," Tony said as he tapped a code into his phone and a panel appeared beside the sizable floor-to-ceiling door that took a thumb and retina scan. Adam guessed the metal-covered entrance was at least three by three yards square.

"How well would this door stand up to conventional weapons?" Adam asked as he ran his hands over its cold, smooth surface, sensing multiple layers of dense composites and what he thought were more ceramics as well as metals he couldn't identify.

Tony blew out a breath as he did the calculations, "It would take something nearly as strong as a 'Bunker-Buster' to breach this door or the walls, floor, or ceiling from the outside. The door would probably stand up to the Hulk Buster with full armament for 15 minutes to half an hour if we're talking multiple missiles and direct pummeling. See for yourself." The immense door rolled outward revealing the structure to be at least eight feet thick and tapered so it fit the frame like a cork in a bottle. Tony pointed out where the back of the door expanded like a drain stopper, so it couldn't be forcibly pulled outward either. The lights were on inside the inner chamber, and they stepped past the door to see a fairly sizable room that looked like a neutrally-colored waiting area with seating scattered throughout and an up-to-date monitoring system along one wall. There was also a galley-style kitchen area and some exercise equipment in a corner. Adam turned as he looked around. The ceiling was eight feet high and there were support columns at regular intervals. He felt confident he could reach this spot with a portal. "So how do you get down here from the upper floors?" he asked.

"That's the part we didn't finish. There's a shaft that's functional, but not luxurious, at the back. It seals off when it's in lockdown. Obviously, that's the weak point," Tony admitted. "I have tested the shaft a few times. It's like a vertical zip-line with a serious braking system."

"Where does it come out?"

"Let's just say you'd have to get to know my shoe and sock collection before you enjoyed the ride," Tony said with a grin.

"Okay, I get it," Adam said, finally feeling a bit of tension unspool. He turned around again and reached out with his senses. "This feels like the heart of a fortress, but it's not ' _me proof_ ' in your book?" Adam asked.

"Not if you're angry or destructive enough, no. Frankly, I was betting someone could talk you or Bruce down first."

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose, "That is not a bet, that's a prayer, Tony. You saw me out of control in South Africa. No . . . worse. That was me _being_ controlled. I was barely aware of what was really happening until right before you coldcocked me."

"Believe me, I much more than saw that happen, Adam," he said with a dry laugh, "and the system to be formerly known as VERONICA was enough to do the job in Johannesburg. Let it go. Here, we have other options, too, but you don't need to know about them. I'm sorry, but you've probably seen enough."

Adam took a moment to calm down before he really got wound up. "Look, I'm sorry to give you a difficult time, Tony. I just want to make sure there's a safe place. I . . . I've hurt too many people. Now, there are going to be children here."

Tony recognized that look. He'd seen it plenty of times before on Bruce's face. The engineer took a chance and put his arm around Adam's shoulders. Sometimes, in his experience, Banners would tolerate the touchy-feely stuff. "Hey, the best we can do is the best we can do until we can do more. We've done everything we can for now. Believe me, we all want the same thing here, Bud. This is going to require a lot more than covering up the electrical outlets or baby-proofing the cabinets, but we've got time."

"Okay," Adam nodded, feeling a tad better. "Thanks for humoring me. Do you mind if I try a portal?"

"Uh, no, by all means, go ahead," Tony snorted. _This guy just didn't stop!_ "We might as well."

"Friday?" Adam enquired as he slipped the sling-ring on his left hand.

"Right here, Mr. Banner," the Interface replied perkily.

"I wanted to give you a heads up that I'm opening a dimensional portal from our current location to Bruce and Natasha's apartment," he said.

"Let me get the door closed first," Tony said as he quickly started the sequence using a wall panel. "Friday, go ahead and put the safe room here in lockdown, but leave off the bells, alarms, and alerts. We just want to see if we can get in and out with everything engaged." They both stood clear as the physical locks and the seal engaged.

"Lockdown is complete, Sar," Friday lilted.

Adam took a moment to concentrate. This was only his third portal of the day, so he wasn't taxing his reserves yet. Tony was fiddling with his phone, taking energy readings and observing as Adam motioned with his right hand and brought together the energy and shaped it before aiming it intentionally. In his mind, he made a connection between their point in reality and the relatively short distance to their destination in the upper floors of the tower. He was being very careful because he didn't want to default back to his own dimension by mistake. After only a few seconds, Adam's efforts produced golden sparks that widened into a fiery wheel of just over six feet in diameter that opened on Bruce and Natasha's foyer. He quickly stabilized it and gave a very small sigh of relief as he stepped back.

Tony shook his head, "You're tapping into your own bioenergy and something else to fold or . . . bend reality—I guess that's what you would call it?"

"Stephen and the books he's had me read so far say we tap into other dimensions for the energy to apply the spell to the frame of reality. However, I think what I'm doing, at least part of the time, is using up my own energy and then tapping into the Gamma through my own dimension. The giveaway is when the sparks and magical constructs go from gold to green."

"What do you mean by 'constructs'?" the engineer asked curiously.

"There are different kinds. I think of them as either temporary or permanent. Anything I make could be called a construct, so it's easier to show you what I mean than explain it. Aside from portals, the first magical one is a shield spell." Adam stepped further back, "Friday, I'm working a spell, so expect some energy fluctuations and anomalies."

"Noted, Mr. Banner."

"Steady," Adam said as he crossed his arms over his chest and they quickly began to glow at the wrists. He shook them out with a quick twist and a downward motion to his sides while the glow snapped out to envelop his hands and forearms in bright sigil-covered gauntlets that extended outward in circles with an 18-inch diameter from his wrists. "These are shields I've been working on. I haven't figured out a weapon yet."

Tony scrubbed his hands down his face, barely believing what he was seeing. "Adam, are you channeling internal energy or outside energy?"

"It's internal, but I can't keep it up for long before I fall back on the Gamma."

"Try tapping the Gamma."

"Hit me with something," Adam told him. "Unless you want to wait, I need to use some energy up first."

Tony looked around. He really didn't want to throw a chair. There were stacks of paperback books on a nearby table, so he picked up a couple and threw them like clunky dodgeballs at Adam who easily fended them off with the shields that seemed to disperse the kinetic energy as they repelled the objects. After the fifth one, the gold began to shift toward chartreuse and by the twelfth throw the gauntlets glowed bright green.

"How long can you fuel those?" Tony asked.

Adam grinned back. "Come on! It's the Gamma. Until my arms get tired or I shut it down. I could have used the kinetic energy from the hits, but I'm figuring out how to absorb or redirect it. I don't want to mess up your room." Adam knew he could use the Mirror Dimension to practice, but he thought it was better to wait than to try that without more experience under his belt.

Tony scratched his chin. "You said something about picking a weapon. Can you make one?"

Adam couldn't help rolling his eyes a bit. "I think I could make one, but I use my fists, not actual weapons. I'm not sure what I should try."

The engineer made a pinched face as he thought. "Assuming firearms and ray guns don't count, how about some kind of bludgeoning thing?" He quickly held up a hand, "Wait, don't do a hammer. Thor will never shut up about it. How about a broad sword? That way you have some reach, and you can use the blade on a sharp edge or the flat sides."

"Okay, that makes some sense," Adam admitted. He dismissed the right shield and pictured the sword's length, width, and weight before he shook out his right arm again. It had taken several tries to get the gauntlets right the first time, so he was a little surprised when the gold hilt and blade snapped into his hand. Adam grinned as he held it up to look at the glowing cross-guard and pommel with dragon heads reminding him of their Uncle Peter.

"Whoa," Tony murmured from a safe distance. "Now, before you ask me to chuck some chairs and tables your way, I wanted to remind you that we have a gym or two that would be more appropriate for that level of training."

Adam chuckled, "Are you sure you don't want to test these out in the lab?"

"Ha-ha-ha!" Tony laughed sarcastically then shook his head. "This is a first. It's me and not a Banner who's saying, 'No, don't do it!' to something."

"Fine," Adam said good-humoredly and the gauntlet shield and sword disappeared. At least he could tick one more task off his assignment list from Strange and Wong. He and Tony picked up the scattered books and stacked them back on the table. Adam snickered when he saw they were all copies of an unauthorized biography. " _Stark Raving Mad: The Untold Story of the Oligarch Behind the Avengers_ by Robinette Rossoff?" Adam enquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Yah, it's interesting fiction, but the books will make better fuel at the next barbeque we do on the roof."

"Looking forward to it," Adam said with a grin, and they stepped through the portal. As Adam dismissed it, Tony quickly pulled his phone out and answered it. He mostly listened then concluded, "Do what you have to do." Adam looked at him questioningly. "Nick thinks Sean has caused a serious security breach, so SHIELD has taken him in for questioning."

"That's really not good," Adam noted. "Do we need to let the others know?"

"Already done. Friday, I trust you're on it?"

"Yes, Sar. Mr. Halsey logged on at the garage entrance terminal after checking in at the front desk, but nothing seems out of the ordinary," reported the Interface.

"Let's get into the lab before something else happens." They left Bruce and Natasha's apartment and walked down the hall to Bruce's lab where Tony coded them in.

Adam looked around with an unguarded expression of awe. "I remember coming through here with Tasha. The ceiling looks higher now. I had to stoop a lot, and I thought I wasn't going to fit through the doorway."

Tony grabbed a plastic bag from one of the cabinets as Adam worked through his sense of déjà vu. "Come on, Champ. You've come a long way since the summer." Tony led him through his partner's lab and down the stairs to the main lab. Tony took off his jacket and threw it over a coat rack's hook. "Why don't you hang the coat up and . . . Okay . . . what's going on with the coat? It just flickered green as you unfastened it."

"It's got a shielding spell woven into it. I wanted to see if I could combine both kinds of constructs and enspell it, sort of like the Finitor. I've not really tested it yet. To finish answering your earlier question about constructs, the coat is a solid object that's meant to be a semi-permanent construct and it's combined with protective spells like the shields. I'd have to take you into my dimension to show you the other kind of construct that's the more permanent type."

"No kidding. Will the coat work for someone else or just you?"

"In theory, whoever is wearing it. It repels or stores kinetic energy like the shield gauntlets, but I don't know how efficiently it works. Try it on if you want." Adam held the gray leather coat for him to slip his arms into.

Tony had expected it to be too big, but it adjusted to his frame. "Okay, I don't care if it works. Now, I just want the coat."

Adam chuckled, "Give me a couple of days. Turn around and brace your feet, and I'll show you how it works." He gave the engineer a slap across his shoulders. "Feel that?"

"I heard it more than felt it. Do it again." Adam made a fist and gave Tony a good thump. "Now I want to get out a repulsor to test this, _but_ I'm not going to do it . . . not till we get the scans done." Adam shrugged and helped Tony out of the gray coat and hung it up. Tony stepped over to a large open-sided scanner that Adam remembered from his last visit. He could recall holding very still and staring up at Tasha. He hoped everything was going okay at the doctor's office. "How many tests are you going to run?"

"Actually, we're going to take a couple of samples and do several scans at once if you'll hold still enough. Make sure you don't have anything metal on you," Tony flipped a couple of switches and observed the main control panel. "Oh, yah. I almost forgot. Friday, time to isolate the labs, my dear."

"See you and Mr. Banner on the other side, Sar," Friday assured them cheerily. The windows along the labs' parameters dimmed slightly as the sequestration protocol took effect.

Tony turned to Adam, "Let's hope nothing important happens in the next half hour because we are now on electronic blackout." Tony opened up the plastic bag and took out a genetic testing kit. "At least you don't need to play James Bond and do this in a public restroom stall like your brother did. Here, open this and run the swab around the inside of your mouth."

Adam took the swab and did as instructed before he recapped it and handed it back. "I suppose you're going to need a blood sample, too?"

"If you can stand it, yes. Sit down on the bench." Tony opened the blood sample pack and put on a pair of latex gloves.

"Only if you can avoid making jokes about my virgin veins," Adam said with a sigh.

"Shit, that hadn't occurred to me. Sure, Big Guy. Let's see your virginal left arm." Adam pulled up his sleeve and Tony examined his forearm and gave a low whistle. No one would mistake you for a user. I've seen ten-year-olds with more scars and a lot less hair."

"Be gentle then," Adam said with a wry chuckle.

"You are just one temptation after another, my friend," Tony replied as he shook his head. "Thank whomever, you do have a sense of humor." He dumped out the sample kit on the bench beside him. "Now, let me get the rubber band thing on you, and then straighten out your arm and make a first. It looks like you have a good spot here." He tapped the inside of Adam's arm at the crux in his elbow where a bluish vein was prominent. Adam held still and did as the engineer instructed. Luckily, Tony managed to hit the vein on the first try and soon had two vials of blood taken. Adam had held the piece of gauze over the needle wound as Tony had withdrawn it, but there had been no ooze of blood just a pink dot of healing tissue when Tony had returned from disposing of the used parts of the collection kit in the biohazard incinerator.

"That figures," Tony said as he shook his head. "The needle tip was titanium to get through your hide without applying a mallet, so I suppose it makes sense you'd heal that fast. Well, no Pokémon Band-aide for you."

"Darn, I was really hoping for a Squirtle. So, what lab do you have doing the genetic testing?" Adam asked as he settled into the scanner. He knew Bruce had been fretting about this off and on for months since Helen Cho's visit.

"Actually, you've met her before," Tony noted almost blandly as he flicked on the music to Kansas and the opening bars of _Carry on Wayward Son_ played over the lab's speakers.

Carry on my wayward son

For there'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry no more

"Not too loud, okay?" Adam warned. He quickly ran down the very short list of people he'd met who could do the testing. "Betty?" he asked as he looked up at Tony.

The engineer adjusted the sound system and nodded. "We don't have to say whose sample it is if you're not comfortable, but she's testing Bruce's already."

"I don't have a problem with it," Adam said as he settled back in the scanner. "She's immanently qualified. Will you be sending it down with a courier to Culver?"

"Well, actually, I was just thinking there's a way to get it to her faster that would avoid the risk of a courier being followed if you get my drift. Do you remember the campus well enough to open a portal there?"

Somehow Adam wasn't the least bit surprised at the suggestion. "That's a good question. I don't remember much more than flashes about the campus and some muddled things through Bruce, but I do remember the woods nearby. I think I could focus well enough to open up a portal there."

"Yes, the woods would probably be more secluded, so no one would see the fireworks show," Tony mused as he scratched his chin and pictured the flashy portal.

"There's also a walking path where it would be easy to meet someone. When do you want to try this?"

"How about after the scans? I just need to confirm we can hand it off to Dr. Ross-Sampson." Tony paused a moment, "Are you okay with doing this? Strange isn't going to pull your wizard's license or something? Make you do extra sets of levitations?"

"No, I don't think he'll kick me out of Hogwarts. Besides, everyone is just going to blame you anyway, right?" Adam joked.

Tony chuckled, "Nice of you to notice." Coming from one scapegoat to another, the acknowledgement did mean something to him.

"I just don't want to upset Betty. Not now," Adam sighed. "Maybe I should just get us there, and you can do the handing off part?"

"Okay. She did look like Junior was ready to make an appearance any time now though she carries herself well." Tony fine-tuned the settings on the scanner. "Almost ready here. Hold very still like you did the last time Natasha ran you through this. There might even be juice and a sucker for you at the end if you're a good boy!"

"Only if the sucker is lemon or cherry. I hate the green ones unless they're sour apple."

Tony snorted, "Speaking of cherries and other formidable female types, what's the plan with the celestial princess? You two obviously have something more than magic in common."

"'Anna is a ruler, not just a princess. Since you asked somewhat politely," Adam said with a frown, "we're just starting to figure things out. We're unusually compatible, and she'd like me to go with her to Nix. I need to get used to being 'real' and controlling my magic first and make certain things are stable here. There's not much else to say right now."

"What is 'unusually compatible' about her?" Tony asked while he adjusted the machine's armature.

Adam shrugged. "Her people have a prophecy that I seem to fit. I'm Hulk and 'Anna has an avatar form that likes . . . well, she _likes_ me. We're quite 'compatible'. I'm the first person she's not run off or killed, so I guess we're off to a good start."

Tony snorted and couldn't keep from grinning, "And you hit this woman with a rock?"

"I did apologize. She forgave me somewhere in there."

"Good, always date above your paygrade, Big Guy." He noted Banners really seemed to know how to pick interesting partners. "All comfortable? Remember, it's going to make some noise, but that means it's doing its job. Just breathe in and out like normal and enjoy the music."

Adam lay still and closed his eyes. He reminded himself how useful the data might be and breathed slowly in and out while he tried to remember as much about Culver University and Willowdale, VA, as he could. There just wasn't much, so he listened to the song repeat like a mantra.

And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean

I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son

For there'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry no more

oo0O0oo

Natasha was impressed with how well Dr. Grace Vining seemed to be handling the information Bruce was unloading on her. She hadn't run screaming out of the examination room or looked faint, and she'd understood what he was explaining and theorizing well enough to ask pertinent questions. This was good. Bruce had skirted around issues that were not health-related, but he described what they knew about his genetics so far and what had happened since the accident. He'd let the physician read through his printed copy of Dr. Sing's fertility report, which had gotten a few comments out of Pepper and a lot of blushing out of Bruce. In the end, the tricky part was explaining Adam's "condition" and what that might mean for their own twins.

"Okay, let me see if I have this straight, Bruce. Your fraternal twin was probably absorbed during the first trimester of your mother's pregnancy, and you were left with deposits or nodes of stem cells from him?"

"Yes, that's correct as far as we could tell. Dr. Helen Cho conducted a flow cytometry blood test last summer that confirmed I'm a genetic chimera. We're pretty certain these cells are part of what enabled me to survive the accident and what allows me to physically transform."

"And somehow your brother's consciousness remained intact and within you until he built his own dimension and his own body?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"I know it sounds really off the wall, but yes, somehow he survived until he could make his own reality 'real' and himself a physical body."

Dr. Vining took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So, you think your brother's condition might be something that could reoccur with your own twins?"

It was Bruce's turn to take a deep breath. "I think that's a possibility, but we aren't sure what Adam's original issue or defect was. We have some reason to think my father also had a vanished twin, so we're concerned this might be something genetic."

"You do know fraternal twins follow the maternal line and not the father's, right?" the physician asked.

"Right, because a woman can pass on a genetic predisposition for hyperovulation, but it can only show up in a daughter. Yes, I do understand. However, I suspect something in the Banner male line causes their partners to do the same thing and release more than one egg a cycle. We may produce a type of androstadienone that stimulates estrogen production in our partners, which in turn leads to hyperovulation. Well, it's a working hypothesis until we find a better explanation or can rule it out."

Dr. Vining tilted her head as she listened. "I suppose that's possible. Have you had a chance to test any of your hypothesis?"

"Not yet, but we're trying to arrange it. Adam and Tony are doing some scans today, but neither of us have had a full genetic workup yet because of our concerns with data leaks and exploitation. To be honest, things have moved so quickly we've hardly had time to adjust to Adam much less a pregnancy. Somewhere in there we're getting married, too."

Natasha looked up at Bruce from her seat on the examination table and hugged him closer. Dr. Vining started to chuckle, "I don't know how you're juggling half of what you are, but I'm willing to keep working with you for as long as you need me."

"Thank you, Dr. Vining," Bruce said. "We're very grateful for your help."

"Yes, thank you," agreed Natasha. Bruce rubbed Natasha's shoulder. He didn't plan to bring up time travel at this point, but he knew it was likely to come up later if there were further "issues."

"What other concerns do you have at this point?" the doctor asked.

The couple looked at each other. "What have I left out, Natasha?" Bruce asked.

"It's been a few months ago, but I remember you mentioned something about a mutation in mitochondrial DNA might be the reason why Adam's fetal body didn't survive. If that's the case, wouldn't that mean the mutation came from your mother's side?" Natasha asked.

Dr. Vining nodded, "That's correct. Except for very rare exceptions, all mtDNA comes from one's mother."

Bruce pressed his lips together and bobbed his head before he answered. "My mother passed away when I was eight, but I do have a living aunt and she has three daughters. I'm sure at least one of them would be willing to give samples if I asked." Bruce swallowed hard before he went on. "There is something else I ought to mention." He looked at Natasha and squeezed her hand, "I've not brought this up before because it is painful and it happened a long time ago, back before the accident. However, it might be relevant." Bruce shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other before he settled down again. "When I was in graduate school, my fiancé at the time and I conceived a child, but there was a miscarriage in the first trimester. There wasn't an exact cause determined. We were young and barely knew there was a pregnancy before it was gone. Both of us were focused on our careers and finishing school, so we moved on and were more careful." Bruce's gaze had drifted down to the floor, so he looked back up at Natasha. "I . . . I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but I've had it shoved to the back of my head for almost 15 years. I didn't think it was constructive to bring it up because I didn't want to hurt you, Nat."

Natasha had shifted her legs around the corner of the table's edge toward him, so she could square up and hug her fiancé. Bruce was grateful for her support and leaned into her embrace. "It's okay, Bruce. You didn't have to tell me till you were ready, and you didn't have to protect me either. Betty is okay, and she and Lee are happy and have their own family. I love you for being strong enough to tell us about this now." They held each other for a few moments.

If she knew Bruce, he'd packed this away and not really grieved properly. She was certainly guilty of doing the same thing herself. That's how she'd been trained. Emotions, the ones deeply felt, were dangerous because they could affect one's mission. Madame had taught her she needed to be made of marble—impenetrable, unyielding, and emotionless. _Now she knew that was such fucking bullshit!_ She'd walled everything out while Bruce had held everything inside. Brick by brick and stone by stone they'd both worked hard to take down those walls, but it wasn't that surprising Bruce still had a few hidden sections of mental masonry that came down like structural collapses or dams that burst. He'd walled off Adam that way. She did almost the same thing, but her breakthroughs were more like avalanches. You knew the conditions were right, but with all her false memories, it was hard to tell what was rock or what was just snow under the iced-over surface.

Dr. Vining had been staring at the floor with her arms crossed and fingers unconsciously drumming her bicep as she considered something. "Bruce, let's see if your aunt or one of her daughters can give a sample, that way you'll have mtDNA to compare with yours."

"Sure, I might as well do it now," he said as he straightened up and squared his shoulders.

Natasha nodded. "The sooner the better since it's going to take some time to analyze. I'm assuming you'll send it to Betty."

Bruce nodded and pulled out his Starkphone. He smiled reassuringly at Natasha, and texted Richard since he wasn't sure what his cousin's schedule was for the day. Richard rang back before Bruce could even replace the phone in his pocket. He explained to Rich as simply as he could the need for a DNA sample.

"Okay, Bru, I can run up and get a swab from Aunt Anne after lunch, but have you looked through the box I gave you yet?" the older man asked.

"No, I've still just looked at a few of the photos on top. Why?"

"Then you've not seen the baby book or the jewelry box yet?" the priest asked.

"No. Things have been a little too crazy."

"The book was at the bottom and sealed in dark plastic. I know my mom said your mother saved your baby teeth and the curls that were trimmed off from your first haircut. There was a locket in the jewelry box in there, too. I think Mom mentioned it had a lock of your mother's hair in it. People used to do that sort of thing more so than they do now."

"Are you serious?" Bruce said in surprise. "That would be at least as good if not better." The three women looked at him curiously, wondering about his excitement. "We could still use the sample from Aunt Anne if you have the time."

"No problem. Do I need like a container or something?" Richard asked.

"I'll text Mal and have a collection kit sent over."

"Just tell them to drop it off at the Cathedral's front desk, and I'll pick it up on my way out," the priest requested.

"Thank you, Rich! This does mean a lot to us."

"Anything you need, just ask, Bru. I'll see you this evening for the presentation up at the university."

"Till later then," Bruce replied and ended the call. He couldn't keep from grinning.

"Come on, Bruce. That must be good news," Pepper coaxed him.

"This is going to sound sort of morbid, but Rich thinks there are some of my baby teeth and a hair sample from me and maybe my mother in with the box of mementos he delivered to me. If they're in good shape, we'll have DNA samples."

"That is excellent news," Dr. Vining acknowledged.

"I better text, Tony," he said. Bruce pulled his phone back out and quickly texted his partner and waited for a response. When it didn't happen immediately, Natasha cleared her throat.

"I would imagine those two are having a good time scanning, so the lab is in lockdown. He'll probably text you back after they're done. We may make it back to the apartment before they're finished," Nat said with a shrug.

"I'll have Friday tell him to check for your message as soon as the lockdown protocol is off," Pepper assured them.

With that settled, they all looked to Dr. Vining. "Is there anything else?" Natasha asked.

The gray-haired woman shook her head, "Since this is now considered a 'high-risk' pregnancy because of the twins, we'll have you scheduled for a routine visit next week. Possible genetic issues aside, I want to keep a close eye on the smaller fetus. Everything looked healthy, but we want to find out as soon as possible if there are any issues. You should seriously consider having an amniotic fluid test in about three to five weeks, but we can talk more about that later. The sonogram videos should be sent to you shortly. Please have the lab you're using for the genetic testing forward me the results when they're ready."

In a short amount of time, they'd confirmed the next appointment at the front desk and paused in the almost empty waiting room. After a careful look around, Natasha turned the "pen of silence" back on. "Update from Nick: they have Sean in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, but he has clammed up tight. The goon from downstairs still hasn't been found. He apparently had a hole to go to ground, or he's working with someone who was ready with transportation." Natasha looked at Pepper. "How much did Sean have access to?"

"He'd been highly vetted, and he was one of my senior assistants, Natasha. With the exception of the labs, there was very little that he didn't have physical access to on the upper floors at some point. He also had computer access to all our schedules, so that may explain some things. He had less of a free rein in most of the system, but you can guess more accurately than I can what he might have done. He'd just started shadowing Happy to see if he wanted to move into management. That's why he drove us here Thursday while Hap picked up the Fleetwood. Being a mole just doesn't make any sense unless somebody has leverage over him."

Bruce glanced from Pepper to Natasha, and his look went from questioning to determined. "I know you both are not sharing all you might want to say in front of me, probably for a good reason, but I think it's time to put all the cards on the table. I know something happened Thursday."

Pepper looked at Natasha and raised her eyebrows. This was Natasha's decision, but she didn't like having to omit something as serious as what had gone down after their last visit to the office. In Pepper's opinion, this was as good a time as any to get the information out before it bit them in the ass.

Fortunately, Natasha agreed with her. "I'm going to have to ask you to trust me on part of this, Bruce, but there is something more serious afoot than bejeweled spy cams and disgraced tabloid columnists. The last time we were here, Pepper and I were followed afterward, but we handled it. It's still an ongoing investigation, but Nick is taking care of things."

"It seems like Nick is having to take care of an awful lot. What the hell happened and how many did you have to put in the hospital?" Bruce asked, his voice getting a bit sharp.

Natasha looked Bruce straight in the eyes as she answered. "No one went to the hospital. I actually let the two go with a warning . . . something which I'm now regretting, but I didn't want it in the papers, and I didn't want to worry you and Tony with it unnecessarily." She could see flecks of green in the depths of his eyes gather and dissipate within the space of two heartbeats. His breathing had stayed steady throughout the conversation, but his lips were pressed together in a straight line. "Are we good, Bruce?"

"Are they crackpots or is there something more to them?" he asked levelly, not ready to let it rest just yet.

"I think they're amateurs. They were both carrying Saint Rita's medals and some fairly advanced technology but not much else. We still haven't positively identified them because there have been no hits on the facial recognition, and they weren't carrying any documentation. Nick has the tranquilizer gun. There was a pretty powerful neuro toxin in it." She hesitated to add that though they were after her, the target was mostly likely their unborn children. She could guess Bruce's thinking had already leapt in that direction. Natasha watched his jaw muscles tense up as he ground his teeth then he stepped back to give himself some breathing room. "Are you okay, Bruce?"

Bruce didn't respond. He could feel a hot flare of Gamma along his spine answering his anger as he surmised what the would-be kidnappers had planned. These people were either ignorant or zealots, true believers in some cause. How had they known she was expecting so quickly? The speed of his anger and the surge of Gamma surprised him, and he closed his eyes, hunching his shoulders and wrapping his arms around his middle. He mentally reached out for Adam but couldn't find him as he tried to do the buffering his brother normally performed between him and the Gamma. Bruce felt like the myelin had been stripped off his nerves and left them raw, but he remembered his training and steadily pushed his heartrate and breathing back down to normal and the Gamma dissipated. He felt Natasha's cool hand on his cheek and straighten up. "Sorry, what did you say?" he asked calmly, and she gave him a long evaluative stare.

"You just about went Liminal," she said. "Sit down a moment." Natasha pulled out her phone and used the radiation app to track his flare.

Bruce did as she suggested without arguing about it. "I can still sense a connection to Adam, but he's really not with me like normal. I didn't realize he was running so much interference between me and the Gamma."

"Is this like what happened last night?" Natasha asked.

"Not quite. It didn't catch me flat footed, but I've become so used to us working together in concert that it feels like I've lost a limb or something. I didn't know he did so much to . . . to protect me. I haven't felt like this since I walled him off." Bruce tried not to sound distressed, but he had a feeling of emptiness and loss that he couldn't quite express. He missed his brother's voice in his head, but he was afraid that closeness was gone. He had no right to expect it to come back.

Bruce's phone pinged with a text back from Tony, and he felt relief wash through him as he called his friend back. "Hey, good news, but I need to talk to Adam first. Would you put him on? Thanks." Bruce stood up and turned, but was careful to stay within the small parameter of the pen's distortion field.

"All is good?" Adam asked. "I just felt a ripple from you a few minutes ago."

"I'm fine. Don't worry. First, congratulations! You're an uncle twice over, but I'm sure you suspected that."

"Yah, I would have been surprised if there wasn't. Everything is okay? You sound a little . . . off?"

"No. No, I'm fine. The doctor thinks the second twin is younger because there's at least a week's difference in gestational development. We'll be keeping a close eye on that. Oh, we know you have at least one nephew."

Adam chuckled, "Bru Junior?"

"No. Not Robert either," Bruce asserted. "I'm sure Nat has some ideas. Go ahead and put the phone on speaker so you can both hear."

Natasha took the opportunity while Bruce was talking to Adam to pull up the TechUWear app readings on what had just happened. She was reassured to see Bruce had calmed down by himself, but he had definitely spiked and held just below a Petite episode for a good two and half minutes. It wasn't pretty, but he had managed it. She'd rather have done this under "controlled conditions" in a gym or even an open field somewhere, but more often than not, you just had to roll with it when these episodes happened. She shook her head and held back a snort. Maybe their bedroom ought to be on that list, too?

Pepper touched her shoulder, "I just called Hap. He'll be waiting for us at the door. Do you think Bruce should put the nano mask thing back on or not? Is he going to need a different disguise?"

Natasha bit her lower lip for a moment, picturing a very unfortunate scenario where Bruce was mistaken for Sean who was cooling off in a S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogation room. "That's a really good question. I can make sure Nick and company know not to jump us, but there are other parties to consider." If she had more backup, she'd consider using someone else as bait. Yet, no, she wouldn't do that to Bruce, Pepper, or Happy. "I think there are five other faces loaded on the mask. I could add a few more, but it would take time."

"Whose faces do you have on there?" Pepper asked curiously.

"Don't get mad at me. Tony, Scott, Maria, Hunter, and one of the female nightshift guards at a certain industrial complex you don't want to know about."

Pepper frowned, "The women are out. I can tell Bruce is stressed enough. Tony is supposed to be in Cincinnati. Scott has a criminal record, but he's about the right height and build. I don't think I've met Hunter. Are you sure Clint's not on there?"

Natasha shook her head. "I wish I'd thought about him earlier."

"Then ask Bruce whom he'd be the more comfortable impersonating."

Bruce broke away from his conversation with Tony and Adam, but kept them on the device. "I told them about the twins, and I think we're caught up on delivering the DNA samples. Betty is going to meet them. Anything else?"

"They might want to be careful about satellite tracking and not turn on their cell phones if they're going to do what I think they're going to do." Natasha said dryly.

"You heard that?" Bruce asked.

"I am on it," Tony replied. "Adam will leave Natasha's turned on, just in case, since I'm sure it's off the grid already if she did what I'm sure she did already."

"Just be careful," Pepper warned. "I don't want to have to send Hap after you."

Tony snorted, "I have a Hulk with me, and he's a lot faster than the Caddy." They could hear Adam chuckle in the background and then remind Tony to hurry up. "We'll probably be back before you are. By the way, let me remind you, Anthony is a really fine name for a boy and Maria is a classic for a girl."

Bruce rolled his eyes and tapped his phone off. "I'd say, 'Let the politicking begin, but he's been more than hinting since Thursday."

"How about Rasputin?" Natasha teased.

"Better than Adolph or Genghis," Pepper offered.

"I kind of like Genghis. It sounds like Gringotts," Bruce said mildly as he shifted his baseball cap down lower over his eyes. "I guess I better go put my travel face back on."

"Wait," Natasha said. "We have an idea."

oo0O0oo

Adam was doing his best to be careful as he unpacked a number of different pieces of memorabilia from Bruce's childhood out of the former Girl Scout Cookie case and placed them on the coffee table in their living room. Adam and Tony were both wearing surgical gloves and an evidence collection kit with an array of containers, sealable bags, and forceps was beside the cardboard box. Tony was being surprisingly reverent and not giving in to his curiosity and desire to examine everything. He took a long look at the tryptic frame with its picture of Bruce and their mother Rebecca and the wedding photograph with her and Brian.

"If you don't mind me noticing, you have your mother's eyes and more of your father's facial structure than Bruce does."

"I'm also as tall as he was, but Bruce got the broader shoulders. We both inherited the ego and the bad disposition, and we're all four ambidextrous. How's that for family trivia?"

"For real? I've seen Bruce use both hands, but he insists he's right handed."

Adam stacked several manila envelopes and folders on the table along with what looked like a small dry-cleaning bag with a lumpy blanket in it. There were two photo albums along the side of the box, some small toys, a few children's books, and smaller boxes with objects in them, which Adam set out on the table. "The right hand is what he's used to using. I didn't have teachers smacking my hands, so I can use both. Mom could write forwards and backwards with both hands. She called that one of her hidden talents. Ah, here's what we're looking for." Adam pulled out a carved wooden jewelry box. "Got a specimen bag?"

"Ready and waiting, Professor Jones."

There was a lock on the box, but it wasn't engaged. Adam sprang the brass latch and carefully pulled open the lid on its hinges. There were two compartments and the bottom was lined with slightly faded red velvet and the top looked to be satin or silk of the same color. A small oval mirror was in the center of the lid. Adam suddenly remembered his cousin Jennifer had a smaller version of this with a tiny ballerina doll that rotated when the lid was up and the music box in the bottom was wound. It had played Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" from _The Nutcracker_. Bruce and she had taken it apart and put it back together one rainy afternoon holed up in the back of her closet with a flashlight and Uncle Morris' eyeglass repair kit. Adam would have liked to examine the pieces of jewelry and baubles to see what memories they touched off, but that would have to wait. He spotted the gold oval locket he remembered and carefully removed it. The gloves made it more difficult to pry the sides apart, but he soon had it open. There was a tiny black and white picture on each side and two locks of dark hair. Adam shook the two tied-off samples onto his palm. One was brown and looped into a single curl. The other was darker and straight. Adam took two small plastic bags from Tony and slid each lock into a bag. "Do you think that will be enough to get a good DNA sample?"

Tony shrugged, "I would think so. Betty said if the hair was well enough preserved and there were hair follicles, just a few strands would work. It looks like you might have roots in both. Whose pictures are those in the locket?" Adam handed it over to Tony since he had been very patient. His friend looked at both sides and then held it up to compare the pictures with Adam's face. "Without the mustache on dear ol' Dad, it's pretty clear you're all related. I bet you have hair samples from both your parents here."

Adam held out his hand and took back the locket to look at the photographs. He guessed these had to be high school or college pictures because his parents both looked younger than he or his brother appeared now. Their mother sat facing the camera with her body half turned. Rebecca Walcott had her long hair pulled back in a dark ponytail that trailed down her back with a few artful wisps of curls trailing free. Her face was perfectly heart-shaped and the cheeks were rounded and youthful. Her intelligent eyes stared almost daringly into the camera to match the mischievous smile on her full lips. Adam looked at his father's face and saw his own at an age he had never really been. Brian Banner's dark straight hair was "high and tight" in a military cut. His skin was stretched over his high cheekbones and strong jaw as if it still needed to catch up with his bones. His dark eyes stared back, serious and piercing whereas his future wife's were playful and outgoing. Adam closed the locket and replaced it in the jewelry box without comment.

Tony had moved a few more framed pictures that were wrapped in yellowed and fragile newspaper out of the box. Those could wait. Adam brought out the final item: a large-format album of some sort in a dark plastic sleeve. He unsealed it and Tony helped him slip the covering off. "You know, this is almost the same thing my mom did with my baby stuff," Tony remarked as Adam examined the cover before setting the book down and gingerly opening it. It was basically an 11" x 14" bound portfolio in baby blue with "Robert Bruce Banner" and his birthdate stamped on the front in gold letters.

Both of them were curious and would have liked to have spent some time going over the details such as the baby shower cards, miniature birth certificate with footprints, and hospital records and handwritten entries, but there just wasn't time. About two-thirds of the way in was a lumpier page with a built-in envelope labeled "Baby's 1st Haircut" and further in was a similar one with "Baby's 1st Tooth". Adam used the forceps and scissors that came with the forensic kit to detach the sealed paper envelopes off the pages. The glue was dried out enough he could have pried the envelopes open, but he thought there might be some trace of saliva left there with DNA. _Better just to send it all_ , he thought.

Tony held out a bag for each envelope and sealed them. "Are we done?" he asked.

"I think so, Dr. Leaky," Adam deadpanned. "We might as well leave all the rest out on the coffee table for now."

"It should be almost as safe here as a vault till we're all back. Grab your coat, and I'll snag us a couple of umbrellas. Betty said it was raining in Virginia," Tony explained as he pulled his jacket on. He also grabbed a shopping bag Pepper had sent up from the tower's gift store at some point.

"Of course, it's raining," Adam remarked. He slipped the bags with the samples into an opaque cylinder the size of a large prescription pill bottle. He used the evidence labeling tape to make certain the lid remained shut. Finally, Adam shoved the small container into his right coat pocket and willed the fabric to stay shut. "Now comes the fun part," the novice mage said almost under his breath. Adam was relying on memories that weren't expressly his, so he instinctively reached out for his brother, hoping for a bit of moral support before he began the spell. He could vaguely sense Bruce, but all he could detect was a low-level feeling of agitation mixed with happiness and excitement. At least nothing seemed to be wrong with him.

Adam left Bruce alone and slipped the sling-ring on his left hand. He pictured the mix of pines and hardwoods he'd awoken under the morning after the accident. The funky smell of damp earth and crushed pine needles was all around. He'd been completely overwhelmed by the smells and sounds that washed over him as he'd curled into a fetal position, naked on the forest floor, eyes squeezed shut, hands over his ears. Still, the initial sensory cacophony was less disturbing than the flashes of pain and blood and explosions roaring through his head from just a few hours before. Eventually, his mind had quieted down as he got used to the sounds of the birds singing and the insects trilling and opened his eyes to the bright contrasts of sun beams and shadows beyond the large conifers he was sheltering under. Later, there was rain and a storm he'd roared at while Betty had comforted him, but first he'd come out to fight that arrogant fool Blonsky and General Ross with the Stark Industry's sound cannon.

Adam could feel the Gamma creeping closer as he gathered his memories of the area and focused his will on the little clearing in the woods where Hulk became who he was. The Gamma was hovering near, so he bent it to his will, harnessing its power to find the location in his memory and connect the two places as he folded reality with a circular gesture of his right hand and opened the portal. The sparks were bright green this time as the portal opened in the apartment's foyer onto a damp forest clearing. The rain seemed to have passed but there was still a drip-drip of rainwater falling from the upper branches. Adam quickly stabilized the opening and gestured for Tony to proceed through. Adam followed and closed the portal behind them.

The Avenger checked his watch and pulled a distorter out of his pocket and engaged it. "According to Dr. Ross-Sampson, there should be a path and a bench near here," Tony said as he pointed east.

"This way," Adam gestured and led them about 100 yards through the trees and undergrowth to a well-used mulched path that curved back toward the campus green and commons area where he'd learned to treat military hardware with extreme prejudice. The bench he remembered was just around the corner, so Adam stopped there and opened his pocket to retrieve the samples, which he handed to Tony. "I'll wait here for you."

The engineer snorted, "What are you afraid of? A very pregnant academic?"

"Yes, I don't want to upset her."

"She's going to be more upset if you stand her up."

"She doesn't know I exist in this form." Adam just knew this was going to go badly and they'd both be upset.

"But she'll be disappointed when she does know, and I'm not going to lie to her about how I got here or who you are, Buddy."

"Well, how did you get here?" asked an amused female voice as the men both looked up to see a very pregnant Betty standing about 20 yards up the path. "The two of you are louder than a quinjet, so I doubt you flew one here."

Tony grabbed Adam's left elbow to steer him along the trail. Adam gave him an irritated look and removed his arm from Tony's grasp, but he didn't argue further. What was done was done, no turning back now.

She was clad in a dark blue raincoat with a hood and looked at them bemusedly as they approached. "Seriously, you're not suited up, Tony, and . . ." Betty's eyes opened wider in surprise and then narrowed as she tilted her head, studying the dark-haired stranger in the gray coat as they approached. She pushed her hood back to get a better look. Adam clearly had her attention. "Are you one of Bruce's Walcott cousins? You look very familiar. Jenn doesn't have a brother, but you could pass for . . ." she reached out her hand in greeting, closing the distance Adam had stopped in front of her as he tried to keep some space between them.

Afraid that he'd hurt her with a flood of memories, Adam did his best to shut down his tactile communication as he shook the woman's hand. "No, but I am related to Bruce," he said in a quiet bass.

"I can see that," she said still scrutinizing him further and trying to place his familiar features. "Your hand is as warm as his." Adam had successfully controlled what he was transmitting, yet he couldn't shut out the friendly, curious feelings radiating from her. He smiled a little uncomfortably, and that's when the light bulb seemed to go on above her head, and she recognized him for who and what he was. "I should have known," she murmured.

Adam let loose of her hand, expecting her to recoil in horror and maybe go into labor or something, but instead she dropped her closed umbrella to the damp path and brought both hands up to his face. He held still though it made him uncomfortable to feel her fingers tracing his cheekbones and brushing his hair back like she once had his brother's so often. A memory flashed of her modifying one of Bruce's equations as they argued over a formula and ended up kissing in a lab. Adam pushed it away. Was it her memory or his or his brother's? He expected her to be angry with him, but instead she just seemed intensely curious, trying to puzzle out how he'd arrived at his current form. Her hands slipped from his face down to his hands, and she grasped them warmly, waking up more memories that weren't his. One was the accident from what had to be her perspective. It took some willpower, but he managed to file them away for later.

The flash of blood and violence reminded Adam, this was why he'd insisted upon leaving her after the fight with Blonsky in Harlem: Betty wasn't afraid of anything, not even when she should run for her life. Her seeming lack of self-preservation had made physically hurting her again more likely than not, so Adam had left her standing there in the rubble with her father as Blonsky was carted away. Bruce couldn't have lived if she'd been hurt again, so running had been the only option Adam had seen. He was pretty sure she'd hated him for it, but most of him really wasn't sorry he'd done it. He couldn't have lived with hurting her either, and that would have been the end. His own sense of self-preservation was much too robust to risk staying. What he did feel guilty about was his trip to the edge of the Astral Plane when he'd found the soft spot in time that led back to the young couple's bedroom. It hadn't occurred to him until he stood over those two intertwined figures that he could have warned them. He could have tried to stop the accident from ever happening, but he chose not to do it. He'd stuck to his plan and not "meddled" further. Though he'd suffered just as much as either of them, in the end the accident had made his body possible. He hadn't known that would be the outcome at the time, but now the body he'd unconsciously made felt like blood money, the silver hand for the loyal servant who'd given his own flesh for a resurrection.

The biologist studied Adam's large, smooth hands, "This isn't Bruce's body. You don't have any scars that I can see. It has to be your own, not a clone of his, and it's new almost like a child's. How?"

Adam nodded, "It's a long story. I'm pretty sure it's not cloned, but I imagined it. We didn't know it was 'real' until a few days ago."

"Well, when it rains, we always seem to get a flood," Tony noted as he observed their interaction.

"Is Bruce doing okay with this change?" she asked.

Adam looked at Tony before he answered, "I think he's fine. We're not so much in each other's heads now." Tony snorted. "Okay, that's kind of obvious."

"The rages? Are they under control for both of you?" Betty asked with concern.

"It seems better, but it's all very new. I'm sorry. I don't know yet." Adam looked away from her out of embarrassment and frustration. A lot of it was still linked to anger and pain. Just because they were both doing well, didn't mean their capacity for negative emotions had gone away. In fact, they both had more to lose now, so the stakes were even higher.

"I think you're both doing as well as anyone could expect for something this far outside of normal," Tony offered. "You're both in emotionally stable places, so that can't hurt."

The biologist hadn't looked away from Adam. "I take it yours is one of the set of samples we're going to analyze?" she asked him.

"Yah, if it's okay with you . . . if it doesn't bother you to do it . . ." he added.

She snorted, "Now you're being silly. I don't blame you, if that's what you're worried about." Betty laid a hand on his chest and stepped as close as her belly would allow. "Go a little easier on yourself. Things worked out and all of us have moved on. If it makes you feel any better, you and Bruce did the right thing at the time. It hurt, but we're grownups. I'd like to see you happy, too, especially now that it looks like you can have a life of your own."

Adam nodded. "Thank you. You doing this means a lot to Bruce and Natasha."

"Twins, hmm? Tony mentioned that." She smiled in that angelic way Adam remembered. "Well, let's see what you two have brought."

Tony handed her the bag of Avengers gift shop goodies he'd been awkwardly trying to hide behind his back. "For Miss Madeline and Junior."

Betty laughed, "Ah, she'll love anything with you all on it. Thank you!"

Next, Tony pulled out the two containers with the samples and handed them to the scientist as well. "The bigger one has the two hair samples from the locket and the envelops are labeled as Bruce's baby teeth and a hair sample. The DNA kit has Adam's samples."

"So, you're going by 'Adam' then? That's appropriate," she noted looking at him.

He nodded, "Uh, yah. Sorry. Bruce said it was a name our mother liked."

"You're right. It's a good name for you. Adam . . . I think it fits." He shrugged and blushed for some reason.

Tony cleared his throat. "Just curious, Betty, how are you getting these done?" Tony asked about the testing.

Betty secured the containers in a pocket inside her raincoat. "Well, that's my secret to keep, but let's just say I have a colleague in forensic pathology, who owed me a favor or two, who knew someone else who owed another favor."

"Okay, if you can send the encrypted results to the account I forwarded you, I'll get them to the obstetrician, and we'll see what all of us can find," Tony said. "Thank you, Betty."

"Well, if everything goes right, this new method should have cut the normal turnaround to a fraction of the normal time. Analysis will take longer. You all will likely have fun with it while I'm on maternity leave, but you two and Bruce will manage. Let me know if you need more than an opinion. We'll work something out once Bruce is out from under the Agreements." She gave Tony a hug and turned to Adam. "It's good to meet you . . . again. Tony has my private number if you need to talk. I'm sure you'll have questions at some point that I might be able to help you with."

He nodded. "That goes both ways," he told her with as reassuring of a smile as he could manage. She patted his shoulder and he put his hand over hers for brief moment. "Please be careful, Betty." She didn't need to know that she'd always caused him more worry than she had Bruce, which was saying plenty. His younger self would have hugged her and held on, but that wasn't who he was now. Adam picked up her dropped umbrella from the path and handed it to her.

"That goes both ways, too." She grinned and rolled her clear blue eyes before she turned and made her way steadily back down the path toward the Culver campus.

Adam and Tony turned the other direction and made their way through the woods and back to the clearing in silence. "Are you going to say anything?" the engineer finally asked.

"What? Thanks? I still think springing me on her was risky, even if it was good to see her, okay?"

"You're welcome, but you're selling her short. She deserved to know you exist, and you needed to know she doesn't loath you. Yah, you're welcome."

Adam huffed out his breath like the large beast to which he was feeling near at the moment. "Thank you," Adam said more sincerely as he looked at Tony. "I'm sorry. I probably should have told her that I'm sorry for how things happened, too, but in her case, I'm really not so sorry. She'd be crippled or worse, and Bruce would be dead or in a cage." Tony nodded in agreement. He couldn't deny the likelihood of what Adam said. "The situation has always been complicated." Adam turned away and tried to stretch the tension out of his neck and shoulders. "God, is it complicated."

Tony patted him on the back, "You can handle it, Big Guy."

"Hope so." Adam pulled the sling-ring out of his pocket. "Back to the apartment?"

"Sure, it's close to the labs. I'm letting Friday know," he pulled his phone out to reactivate it and tapped in a few commands as the magic user readied the spell. "Well, this is weird . . ." Tony murmured as Friday didn't respond.

The next instant, Adam gasped and put his right hand to his head. "We need to get back now!" He gritted his teeth and quickly opened the portal, leading them both through as soon as the fiery green circle was stable.

"Friday, what's going on?" Tony demanded from the Interface as soon as the stepped into the foyer, but no voice answered him. He flicked quickly through screens on his phone. "Friday isn't responding, and it looks like most areas of the building are on lockdown, so I'm going to have to get to the lab."

Adam nodded, getting a grip on the feedback from his brother. "Something has Bruce on the edge of Hulking out. Here, this is faster." Adam closed the first portal and quickly opened another green-sparked ring into the main lab. Tony stepped up to one of the consoles as Adam dismissed the second portal.

"Friday, what's happening?" Tony asked as his fingers flew across the projected screens, pulling up holographs of schematics. Most of them had blank sections from the main floors of the building downward to the lowest levels of the garage.

"I'm here, Boss, but a hostile program has taken over the basement terminals, and it's trying to shut me down. I kept it out of the labs, but it's got the building on lockdown. I'm trying to contain it and reboot those sections."

"Did the Cadillac make it back? Where are Pepper, Hap, Nat, and Bruce?"

"They were in the Cadillac, which entered the garage at 10:58am, approximately a minute and half before the cyber-attack was detectable. The last camera images with visual contact show they were past the gate to the private lower levels. I cannot currently access those levels for a more accurate report."

"I'm going down," Adam said.

"Not till I'm suited up. Friday, I need one of the stealth models."

"Sar, if it's not in the labs, it's locked down."

"The suits aren't," he argued.

"But we can't communicate with them. They might as well be in the vault."

"Okay, what do I have in the lab?" Tony asked as he stripped out of his winter jacket.

"The new 'suitcase' model, Mark L, but the leg thrusters are not fully operational."

"I'll take it anyway. Has S.H.I.E.L.D. been informed?"

"On the way. ETA is six minutes and 20 seconds."

"Can you tell us anything about what's happening in the lowest level?"

The lighting outside the labs blinked as the power went down. "Sorry, I had to shut the power off for a moment. No cameras yet, but I'm getting some information now. It appears the garage levels completely lost power. The auxiliary power has not kicked on there yet. I'm getting control of the systems above ground, but it's going to take time as I reboot and purge the system," the interface advised.

"Come on, folks, give us a sign," Tony said under his breath.

The next moment they felt a tremor that rattled some of the glass. "The security checkpoint at the garage entrance appears to be the point of attack, Sar. I have security footage from across the street."

Adam gave a stifled cry, "He's Hulking out! We have to go now."

"It appears someone has manually activated Ms. Potts' Rescue Armor and released it from the garage storage area."

"That's my girl!" Tony grinned as his new armor snaked around him in black and crimson banded pieces.

"Stay to the side of the portal. There's some kind of weapons fire," Adam instructed as he fashioned the portal to the building's lower level. The green sparks formed as the last of Tony's new armor curved around his body and locked into place. They could hear concussive weapons fire and see flashes against a nearly pitch dark background that silhouetted the loading dock. As the portal widened to about six feet across, they heard what had to be Bruce's Hulk roar from deep in the dark and something blue-gray and mechanical slammed into the portal, but it was too large to get through. Green and orange sparks flew and whatever it was recoiled back into the darkness with a crash, and the tang of burnt metal, fried circuits, and melted plastic swept into the lab.

"Shit! I wondered what would happen if something made contact with the edge like that," Tony swore. Adam shook his head and didn't widen the portal further. The last thing they needed was some kind of Star Wars Walker stumbling into the lab.

"I've got it stabilized," Adam yelled over more weapons fire as bright gold rotating disks covered in rotating sigils flared into being and turned to green as they wrapped around his left arm and right hand. "Stay behind my shield as we go in. We'll be on the loading dock. I'll close this portal and open up another one to dump whatever they are into my dimension. Be careful, Bruce might be out of control. He's never really been completely Hulk without me before."

Behind the alloy mask, Tony went pale. "Hold it. How are you still conscious?"

"We're in the same reality. My head feels like it's splitting open, but I can stay in this form with some effort and still work magic. If I Hulk out, I might be savage. If I go to my dimension, I can help Bruce be Hulk, but my body will pass out. I can't do that if we need portals."

"Shit. Okay, we keep you both here like you are now, or things get worse. Got it. I'm sure these people are here after Nat."

"Most likely, let's go!" Adam yelled as he and Tony leapt through the emerald-sparked portal into the dungeon-like darkness of the garage.

oo0O0oo

 **End Notes:** Sorry for the long wait on this, and thank you for hanging in there! Please ask questions. A lot of things are coming together and the trap is sprung. Help is on the way, but what are they going to find at the bottom of the tower? I'll get the next part up as soon as I can. School starts Monday, so fingers are crossed.

If you've not read "A Physicist/Part-Time Gladiator and a Demi-God Walk into a Bar" and "Shovel, Meet Dirt" (co-written with Autumn_Froste), you have a treat waiting for you! I was not just goofing off for three months . . . well, not that much.

If you've not seen the covers/collage things that go with the chapters, check out my Pinterest board of Bruce x Natasha Edits under DrRJSB. Have a fun eclipse!


	62. Chapter 62

****Summary:**** The trap beneath the Tower is sprung! Star Wars and Transformers references are made. Things get broken. Lots of action and a few surprises. Pepper is a badass, but you already knew that! Just another Saturday morning in the parking garage.

 ** **Notes:**** Many thanks to my wonderful Beta-Lady, Autumn_Froste, who helped with the weapons and widows and bots. Thank you to Son #2 for his extensive knowledge of all things tank-related, historical and otherwise. As he tells me, "Hulk is a tank, so at least we have that in common."

Sorry this has taken so long. It's coming, just not as quickly as I know people would like-me included-but I think you'll agree I'm keeping a lot of balls in the air and spinning a ton of plates as the plot thickens and characters come back into the story. Also, action sequences with seven named characters involved, told from multiple points of view is a bit of a challenge. (What was I thinking?)

 ** **Chapter 62: Wildcards and Widows****

Natasha was a little surprised when Bruce insisted on staying disguised as Sean Halsey for the trip down to the car and the ride back to the tower from the doctor's office. His reasoning was that it kept things simple and consistent. Since S.H.I.E.L.D. was aware and they had Sean securely in custody, the risks should be minimal. That didn't stop her from running every negative scenario possible through her head, wondering if she'd missed anything. The trip down to the car had been uneventful, but watching Bruce rock back and forth on the balls of his feet with barely contained excitement had made her happy just watching him, even if he did look like Sean. Pepper smirked at them and texted Happy that they were on the way down.

When they arrived at the lobby, there wasn't a doorman present, so Bruce held the door for Pepper and Natasha just as Happy pulled the behemoth of a Cadillac up to the curb. Natasha unobtrusively scanned the area as Bruce quickly walked past the two women and opened the car door. They were all quiet until Bruce was seated up front and the doors were all securely shut.

"So, have you thought anymore about the Old McDonald theme? It is gender neutral just in case it matters," Hap started in. Natasha and Pepper both looked at each other and tried not to crack up.

Hap didn't notice them, but Bruce half turned his head to raise a sandy eyebrow at them, telegraphing they ought to behave before he answered the chauffeur. "I have, Hap. I think we'll end up doing something that includes Old McDonald along with some other things we both like."

Pepper nudged Natasha and whispered, "Oh, wow, he's got the 'dad eye' down already!"

"Boo to the patriarchy!" Natasha couldn't help but snort as she did her best not to laugh too much. Things had been so intense, they all needed to find some humor where they could. With some effort, she put herself back into low-level alert and checked traffic behind them as Hap pulled the Cadillac Fleetwood smoothly away from the curb and into traffic. A couple of panel vans pulled out from a side street into the same lane a few cars behind them. The logos on the sides indicated they were from the same produce company that serviced the tower. She'd grown accustomed to seeing them making deliveries on Tuesdays and Fridays in the upper levels of the garage where the commercial loading dock was located. Natasha went ahead and faced forward. The vans were too far back though the window tinting on the Caddy was dark enough she might have sneaked a look at the front driver unnoticed.

Bruce was making his case for a whimsical fantasy theme to Hap, but he flipped his visor down so he could angle the mirror in it for her to see behind them. He gave her a quick wink over his shoulder to say, _You're welcome!_ She felt a surge of pride that he'd picked up on her issue with the vans, but then she reminded herself that Bruce had been on the run before, so a hint of hypervigilance wasn't exactly new to the physicist. It was the idea he was doing it for her that made her return his wink with a grin. Well, he definitely knew her. Being a little paranoid might do more than just keep them out of trouble. Hap and Bruce prattled on for a bit, and she and Pepper listened and sat rolling their eyes at the men and scanning through the sonogram images on her phone when they arrived.

Soon, they were within a few blocks of the tower, and traffic slowed as they reached the final intersection before they would pass in front of the building and turn right to reach the garage's entrance ramp that descended beneath the skyscraper. That's when Natasha noted the two larger moving vans with signage for Ohio and New Mexico splashed across their sides double-parked down the side street on the right as they passed through the intersection. Bruce noted them, too, since they were promoting states he'd once called home. While Happy kept talking about babyproofing the upper floors, Natasha slid her hand into the seat's hidden crevice to check the cache of items she'd stowed there late Thursday.

Yelena Belova sat quietly in the back of a panel van, parked on Level 3, the lowest level of the tower's garage that a paying customer could reach. Her arms were stiff and her feet were getting cold, but the gun-for-hire didn't much care because her ability to feel physical pain was rather limited. Her range of sensations was restricted to dull numbness or knowing it should have hurt like hell, yet didn't. That's what happened when you were blown up from the inside, yet your body refused to die. She looked normal enough in her tactical gear, but under the Kevlar, canvas, and leather, her body looked more like it belonged to Frankenstein's monster than a seductively lethal graduate of the Red Room. That's what happened when you absorbed abilities and couldn't purge the debilitating side effects that came along with them.

She was watching a monitor spliced into the video feed of the street-level gatehouse three floors above her, so she'd seen Fury collar their mole almost an hour ago and remove him from the building. She'd calmly sat tight as security had swept the garage. Their inside man had done his job, so as long as he kept his mouth shut a little longer, there shouldn't be a problem. There wasn't much he could tell S.H.I.E.L.D. except that he'd been blackmailed in a most embarrassing way by unknown parties. Yelena's repaired shoulder creaked a bit as she brushed a stray lock of her blonde bob out of her eyes. Up until a few days ago, those "parties" had been unknown to her, too. However, she hadn't been blackmailed to ride herd on AIM's little circus of Saint Rita's zealots and fools it had recruited.

No, Yelena was well acquainted with the organization that had given her great power as an adaptoid only to take it from her brutally when she failed in her first mission for them. She had been gifted with the ability to adapt to an "enhanced" individual's power set simply by touching the person's skin. What she hadn't counted on was the difficulty controlling those new stolen abilities would present in the middle of a firefight after she'd touched multiple individuals. The resulting overload of unfettered powers led to her capture and the subsequent hasty execution by her panicked AIM handlers. It had been messy and immeasurably unpleasant, but she'd touched more than one opponent that day with a talent for healing. Unfortunately, when you've been reduced to a pile of quivering meat scraps and bones, it can take a hideously long time to return to "functional." If you could call this crazy quilt of a body _functional_. It took twice that long for her to stabilize and find a new "normal," something she refused to get used to every morning when she looked at her misshapen body in the mirror. It was as if parts of her were at war with each other and none of them were winning. That was why, when her old "friend" Yevgeny Eder called late Thursday with sweet seductive promises of restoring her into her old body with better control of her abilities, she'd agreed to listen.

Dr. Eder had been the third in line in AIM's Biological Weapons Division when they met just prior to her enhancements; however, since then he'd somehow emerged at the top. She remembered his urbane Austrian accent well. "Come, come, Yelena. Now that I'm in charge, I have a very ambitious research agenda, and I want you to be a part of it. I require certain raw materials to supply the foundation that will bringing forth a more perfect world. If this acquisitional maneuver succeeds, we'll have enough raw materials to keep AIM scientists productive for decades on a miraculous variety of advances for our species."

"'Raw materials' you call it?" she'd snorted. "Just spit it out. You want a piece of the Hulk, or, barring that, a piece of my predecessor containing his genetics. You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical about there being such a thing as the latter while attempting to acquire the former would result in nothing but carnage. Forgive me, but I've had enough of that where AIM and New York's superheroes are concerned."

"My dear, this is no suicide mission. We have had a careful plan in place for months," he offered smoothly.

Yelena snorted with ridicule, "I know your pet general played with the toys you gave him, and then he left your organization high and dry. I could have told you his obsession with Banner blinds him to everything but his personal vendetta."

It was the scientist's turn to sniff derisively. "That 'partnership' was that blockhead Heilman's idea—not mine. He's been replaced since Ross lost in the World Court. I, however, have planned out a much better web to catch our prey. All I need is a professional spider such as yourself to see it through this last stage. What do you say, Yelena? I've always had faith in you. Don't tell me you wouldn't like to best the redheaded one once and for all."

"What's in it for me aside from settling personal vendettas, hmm? My experiences with you have been far from stellar, Yevgeny."

"Now, now, who literally helped scrape you up off the floor and put you back together, hmm? I'm giving you the chance to prove yourself useful to AIM once again. You'll be paid well, but who's to say you won't benefit from what you acquire? I have a research agenda that includes corporal regeneration. You still have most of your pretty face intact—I made sure of that. What we could do with the right stem cells is correct the ravages your mutative powers have caused and make you a better body. You'd be yourself again, but better, stronger, and more durable."

"I don't relish the idea of turning green or losing control, Yevgeny. In my line of work, subtlety is a necessity and so was blending in."

"Don't be so childish and shortsighted, mein süßes mädchen. We have kept your original DNA, so just think what it could do if grown with those stem cells as hosts! You would be a goddess . . . the next step in our evolution."

It had taken two more phone calls and a careful analysis of their operation to get her to agree. Her price had been steep and included the option of enhancements being part of her compensation package. They had put her in charge of the field operation with substantial resources that included more hardware and personnel than she thought was necessary, but if Eder considered them expendable, who was she to judge? AIM didn't need the gaudy tower to fall, she simply had to extract a lone redheaded spider and turn her over to Yevgeny's tender mercies. No big deal.

That being said, she hated working with this same bunch of ideological fools again. If she weren't sure her body was failing her, she'd have never agreed to attempt this. Once she received the message that the chauffeur Hogan had picked up three people—Romanoff, Potts, and a male—in front of the obstetrician's building, she asked for clarification on the male's identity. To her knowledge, Halsey was still in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody and no other Stark employees had entered the building. Banner and Stark were out of town, and the rest of the Avengers had been tracked and accounted for. "Comptroller One, who is the third person, the man?"

"He was Caucasian and sandy haired. It appears to be Halsey," reported the operation's manager back at AIM's Mission Command Center.

"How is that possible?" she demanded.

"Fury must have let him go."

"I don't believe that for a second. It's someone else they've slipped in. Was anyone with Romanoff and Potts when they went inside?"

"Rooney reports it was Halsey. He was at the door, so he ought to know," the handler snapped with irritation.

Yelena growled low in her throat, "I don't like this. Something isn't right. Fury wouldn't let him go so fast, not even if Halsey was double-crossing us and still working for them. The last thing we need is a wildcard."

The handler's voice on the other end was silent for a moment and then there was muffled conversation as he consulted with someone. "That means it's _not_ Halsey. You're the one on the ground, Belova. It's your call. Should we abort?"

"No. Not yet," she said with some hesitation. "It's probably just another employee of Stark's that your people have missed in their sloppiness. The heavy hitters are all accounted for elsewhere hundreds of miles away and occupied with other things. You'd better hope this is only a staff person."

"What's one more valet with a handgun when we have the better ground game? Our Armored Transport/Attack Pods certainly don't lack firepower!" There was a notable amount of swaggering laughter on the other end of the comm. "He'll just be one more oil stain on the garage floor soon enough, Belova." She heard someone in the background call her a "twitchy bitch." _How charming_. She made a mental note of it.

"Promises, promises," she muttered. "If you're AT/APs can't handle this, I'll be taking it out of your hide, Comptroller One." So much faith in machines and technology: this was the kind of hubris that nearly ended her existence the last time. It was also the sort of bullshit that almost allowed Romanoff to tag her not so long ago. "Good, let's keep it quiet until they reach this block. Squads One and Two: power up and be ready to deploy your equipment once they are inside the building." Both squad leaders confirmed their readiness.

"AT/APs!" she scoffed after the comm was switched off. It sounded like someone had a Star Wars complex with the acronyms. There were a dozen of the manned attack pods, which, now that she thought about it, did move a bit like the two-legged walkers from the movie franchise. The main difference was the pilot was positioned more upright while in attack mode but shifted to a horizontal position while in transport mode. They could maneuver on two limbs with treads while vertical and four when horizontal. In her opinion, they looked like a bluish gray metal nightmare from an H.R. Giger painting on roller skates, but they functioned like small, swift tanks with vertical options like a robot with arms that could grasp and carry. They had technology for transporting targets, whether they were willing to be taken or not. The unit had done it both ways.

Most of the Saint Rita's recruits had been training in the pods for several months, and the videos Yevgeny had showed her of the advanced squad unit working together on an extraction mission in a jungle environment were impressive. However, what she was less impressed with was one of the unit's unmentioned missions in urban areas. The operation in question had to be halted with half of the Pods already deployed like ducks on a river bank. No wonder the command center flunkies were "twitchy" about aborting a mission. That near fiasco had not been featured on Yevgeny's slick video. Oh no, she'd heard about it from her Pakistani contacts. When she'd asked the AIM Division Head about Karachi, Eder had blamed it on the machines not being completely dust or water proofed at the time. She knew that was only half of the reason: the zealots lost some of their zeal when word got out their eugenics goals for racial purity were not meshing so well with AIM's assignment to extract a biological weapons engineer. AIM had lost a few recruits that day, but the ones who stayed seemed to be all the more gung-ho when it came to "harvesting the wheat from the chaff."

AIM had even tried to train some of the "Ritas" for intelligence gathering. That had impressed her the least of all. They must have been desperate, indeed. She'd tried talking to the two failed field operatives Romanoff sent back Thursday as a warning, but both of them were so deep into their dogma they were useless to her. They had lost even the pretense of objectivity, cool headedness, and dispassion needed for quality intelligence work. Their orders had been to keep an eye on Romanoff from a distance and help set up the extraction, but in their excitement to capture her, they'd followed too closely and had their asses handed to them. All they had to say for themselves was two AT/APs would have been enough to take her, which was completely not the point. Just thinking about their stupidity made her fume. Thanks to those two, their target was on high alert, and Yelena had been called in to make certain things went smoothly in the field—not her forte, but she could do it. Fools, zealots, and drone robots: that's what she was reduced to leading if she wanted to stabilize her physical condition. She'd noted there was no explanation for how they'd anticipated Romanoff and Banner's little "development" despite such pathetic operatives. Her guess was AIM had hired an independent contractor or made friends with another entity who had better intelligence, someone or some group who wanted samples as badly as AIM did. Maybe, an organization who'd gotten a person with more information than the unfortunate Mr. Halsey to talk.

Yelena habitually checked her equipment once more then went over their plan and her own backup plans since she'd learned her lesson concerning AIM all too well. It was time for her to get into position. AIM had offered her an AT/AP, but she was far more comfortable running the operation the old-fashioned way—on her own two feet—where she could be most effective. "I'm headed down to the docks at the lower level. What is the target's position?"

"It has now reached the tower's block. ETA at the upper gate is less than two minutes."

"Roger. I will wait for them and signal when they're in position. Remember, this is an extraction, not an assassination. Keep it fast and neat. Collateral damage means you've gotten sloppy. You all know the consequences if you get caught." Yelena hated when it got sloppy, and she knew better than any of them what happened when you were caught.

Happy had chatted with the woman he knew at the gate for a moment and eyed the two muscular S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in plainclothes flanking her before he pulled away from the entrance, and they descended into the garage. "Those guys always give me the heebie-jeebies. I know we're all just being cautious, but I hate having to deal with them when we have plenty of personnel who could do the job."

"I'm not about to turn down their help after what happened Thursday and then with Sean this morning," Pepper told him. "No offence intended, Hap."

The chauffeur sighed, "None taken, Pep." He took his job as Head of Security seriously, so he couldn't help but feel a little territorial.

Bruce had reached over the top of the front seat to take Natasha's hand. Once they were in the elevator, he would finally be able to take off the Nano mask. Cool as the technology was, a claustrophobic feeling was slowly building in him as the Caddy descended floor by floor. Natasha stroked his hand and fingers with her thumb, exuding calmness and reassurance. He was relieved when they reached the automated gate to the private lower level. The gate rose smoothly, and Hap drove the vehicle through. All of them seemed to let out a sigh of relief together as the metal doors slid seamlessly closed. Hap pulled into the vehicle's oversized parking space across from the loading dock and the elevators. Bruce was quickly out of the car and opened the door for Natasha and Pepper as if he was still playing Sean's part.

"Well, thank you so much, _Sean_ ," Pepper teased as he closed the car door behind them. "Friday, where are our other guys?" Pepper asked but there was no familiar response from the Interface.

"The speaker might be out," Hap offered, pulling out his phone to check.

"You might want to put a tech on that and a tracker on Tony." Natasha stepped past Pepper and took Bruce's arm. "Sorry, this one is all mine, and I'm keeping him in sight."

As they walked toward the elevator on the loading dock, the garage lights blinked, then shut off, and everyone froze. The axillary lighting kicked in but didn't come back up completely. The once bright space was now plunged into a twilight gloom with shadows that loomed like clinging pitch. Hap's phone was the only bright spot of light within 30 yards. "What's going . . ." Pepper started to ask but instantly thought better of it. They'd all instinctively stopped in place and Natasha motioned for Hap to shut his phone up, which he wisely did.

"Well, well, what will your large green paramour say about that, Romanoff?" remarked a mocking feminine voice as Yelena Belova stepped around the corner of the dock. "I'm sure it wouldn't be coherent, but you've always liked them big, dumb, and malleable. This one's kind of cute in that boy from next door sort of way, but I didn't think you were into blondes."

As the assassin spoke, Bruce had managed to step in front of the other three. Natasha and Hap had fanned out to the right and left, handguns out and trained on the assassin. Even through the Nano mask Bruce could now catch a scent that Natasha had brought home from a mission months ago mixed with the blood on a penknife that had been stashed as a threat in her duffle bag. He also remembered a variation of it from a certain forensic case he'd consulted on years prior to that. Below it was a new sickly sweet scent like carrion that immediately repelled him. "Belova," he murmured and a prickle of the Gamma snapped up his spine, much more aggressively than it had in years. The crackle of it along his nerves was both head-clearing and energizing. It hardly entered Bruce's mind that he should keep a tighter rein on himself because there was no longer any backup support or buffering from Adam. His own primal brain screamed one imperative: _Protect!_

Natasha firmly grabbed his right elbow with her left hand and stepped in front of Bruce who refused to retreat an inch. "What do you want, Yelena?" she demanded.

The deadly blonde had yet to draw a weapon, but she had a small device she was obviously fingering in her left hand. "I'm only going to ask once, Romanoff. If you value the lives of these other three and those in the tower above, come with me peacefully and none of you will be harmed. Refuse to be reasonable, and I and my friends will make things messy. I'm sure Stark won't appreciate it if his loved ones are damaged. Come with me, and those three can take the elevator to safety. What will it be?"

"NO!" Bruce roared in an unnaturally deep voice, and Yelena's hand spasmodically clenched onto the device, and her eyes went wide as she experienced a sudden epiphany concerning his real identity. The axillary lighting went completely down and they were plunged into darkness. Several things seemed to happen all at once.

Natasha grabbed at Bruce, yanking hard at his elbow and slamming her shoulder into his chest to knock him down, but a blue-white plasma bolt grazed her shoulder and hit Bruce. He roared and fell backwards. She landed on top of him and groped to find the Nano mask, ripping it off him. The last thing they wanted was the electronics melted into his face or scalp. "Stay down. Where did she . . ." Natasha could feel the heat pouring off him. He was breathing, but she smelled the bitter tang of iron and Gamma as she realized the mask was wet with blood. "No!"

"I'm . . . okay," he wheezed between gritted teeth. "Need . . . to get you . . . out of here." He shifted her off his chest, rolling onto his knees and crouching over her protectively as she sat up. Bruce touched her shoulder. He didn't question why his senses were becoming so acutely aware they were painful. "I know you're bleeding, too. Belova's not alone," he hissed in a deep whisper. There was a grating sound back by the gate, and Natasha put a hand over his mouth to quiet him. A dull, pulsating tremor reverberated through the floor, and it continued after the metallic sound ceased. Bruce tried to wipe the blood out of his eyes—he was sure he could spot the blonde and take her out if his head would just quit throbbing. At least the bleeding had stopped.

"I know," she breathed in his ear. "Stay calm." She crouched beside him running her hands over him. His clothing was tight, so she yanked off his jacket with his wallet and phone in the pockets. Bruce was too distracted to fight or help her very much. He was unbearably hot to the touch—most definitely into the Liminal. As her eyes adjusted, Natasha could see a dim red glow from the exit sign outside the stairway door on the far end of the loading dock, but almost nothing else. Pepper and Hap must have retreated. Belova would leave them alone unless she wanted hostages. There was a scramble of foot movement, a thudding sound, a brief flash of light behind them, and the slam of car doors. "I think Happy got Pepper back into the car," she whispered, "You should follow . . ."

He shook his head vigorously. "No," he mouthed into her hand. There was no way he was getting into the car. He was too far gone. He would hurt Pepper and Hap. The rhythmic thudding was getting closer. The tramp and growl of machines was audible now, and his heart was hammering inside his chest. The trucks, the vans: it was something from inside them. He knew they were coming for Natasha, for their children. He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't let that happen. There was a rumbling explosion floors above them, that made his ears ring as a pressure wave hit them. It had to be some kind of concussive weapon. He tried to calculate what would cause that sort of blast and his brain spun like a truck tire with no traction. Bruce curled around Natasha protectively and grabbed his ears, choking down a groan of pain. He wasn't going to win this internal struggle, but he wanted to control it. Where was Adam? His brother should be helping him now.

Something struck the gate with a ripping metallic sound and beams of light streaked into the garage through the rough opening. He'd held the transformation off, but too much was in the balance now. Bruce reached out more desperately for Adam's familiar support and realized he really was alone. He'd have no help to ease him through the transition or give him room to think. The halogen beams came and went on the other side of the gate, Bruce looked at Natasha who stared at him with alarm in her eyes. His mind was made up.

"I love you. Get in the car," he gasped as his voice dropped into a growling Hulk register. He quit fighting his body and opened himself up to the Gamma, and the anger and fear he was feeling spurred him on as he sprang toward the gate with a roar. The machine on the opposite side of the gate had lowered itself, stepping through the hole it had ripped in the metal door. It stood almost as tall as his Hulk form did with his head brushing the concrete ceiling, but he shoulder-checked the contrivance and forced it back through the opening with his charge. Bruce did some structural damage to the gate himself as he burst through, but he was beyond caring because all his head could think was _SMASH!_

Natasha fought off the momentary urge to curl up into a ball as Bruce transformed with what she knew was a pain-induced roar. Scattering the remnants of his street clothes, he rushed to take on the machines—there was no way just one contraption made all that racket. He was a large target for their blasts and gunfire as he forced them back from the ruined gate. _Protect! SMASH!_ That was his standard operating procedure. Natasha could recognize the Big Guy's modus operandi at work, but he seemed to be ramped up a few levels. She covered her ears as he roared his challenge and the fight was on.

That still left her with one five-and-half-foot problem: where was Yelena Belova? The other Widow had panicked when she recognized Bruce, so his presence had clearly not been accounted for in her plans. Natasha hoped that would be to their advantage. The Big Guy—she thought of him as Bruce as much as Adam, Hulked-out or not—he and the machines were crashing against what was left of the gate. The metal door was battered and hanging from its tracks. It was hard to get a good look at the machines, but she guessed by the head lamps there were about a half dozen gray metallic vehicles on stocky legs with treads like bulldozers or tanks. Hulk tore the limbs from one and used its tread to knock another back, but more seemed to be coming and rising up from the ground to fight and fire on him. Natasha wasn't sure if they were drones or manned vehicles, but her gut said there was a human intelligence controlling them as they backed off just out of reach to use their weapons, trying to lure him away from the gate or force him back. He kept shaking his head, as if he couldn't quite get it to clear. Then it clicked, Natasha realized this was the first time Bruce had become Hulk since Adam had entered their dimension. He looked like he might be having sensory issues like Adam did while Hulked-out, but there was no way to tell for certain in the thick of a fight.

Nat shook herself out of her thoughts and crept into the deeper shadows, listening for her old foe over the on-going ruckus. This might have started as a snatch and grab operation, but Belova had chosen to grandstand on her soapbox for some reason. Her mistake. Unless distraction was the plan, but Natasha doubted the whole operation had turned on a dime like that when Belova recognized Bruce. Either way, Friday was still down or blocked, and Natasha was sure the garage, if not the entire building, was in lockdown mode. God knew she'd reviewed and tweaked the emergency protocols enough. That meant the elevator and stairs were sealed tight as was the street entrance. Even the elevator shaft would be blocked. Help would be on the way as soon as Tony and Adam were back or Nick sent it, so the four of them just needed to hold these machines off and find a blonde spider. The sound of what she could now tell were plasmablasts intensified, and Bruce roared as he faced at least ten machines taking turns baiting him like wolves attacking a grizzly at the entrance of its den.

Natasha made it back to the car in a low crouch, but she had no intention of asking to be let inside, not yet, as she rested her back against the passenger-side door. Belova was close. Nat smelled a cloying honey scent and dove into a forward roll, anticipating her foe's move before Yelena carried through with it as she leapt over the roof and swung down on Natasha's side, leading with her boot heels. Natasha had had her back to the car, so her roll forward took her out of reach. The redhead popped up facing the assassin and firing her new Glock 21. She thought she'd solidly tagged her assailant with all three body shots, but Belova landed on her feet and kept coming at her. Natasha scrambled to the side and continued firing. Yelena seemed to just shrug off the slugs. Either she was wearing something even better than standard body armor or she still had her stolen abilities. Nat swallowed and prayed it was some new kickass Kevlar. "Give it up. Your operation has gone for bust, Belova. S.H.I.E.L.D. will be here shortly to take your ass into custody."

The other woman cackled as she continued to advance, "I wouldn't count on S.H.I.E.L.D. You're coming with me. The AT/APs are keeping your lover busy, so he's not going to save you. Maybe he'll even help bring the tower down as a bonus." Natasha answered her by emptying her clip in the younger woman's face. This time Nat saw the bullets bounce off Belova's skull. As she recalled the list of people whose powers Belova had absorbed, she almost panicked. Luke Cage, Logan, and Jessica Drew had been on it. _Crap!_ Her head started to swim with the sweet sickly smell getting stronger. She almost threw the empty gun in the assassin's face, but pocketed it and ran, knowing her best strategy was to stay as far away from the other woman as possible in a limited amount of garage. The blonde didn't seem to have all of Ms. Drew's abilities, but pheromone-fueled control was enough. Belova laughed, "Ah, don't you want to come play with me? I promise it'll be more fun than the Red Room. You can try and run, Romanoff, but one way or another, you're coming with me. I can even make you want to do it."

Behind Belova, the Cadillac's engine roared to life and Happy floored it, whipping the huge Fleetwood around and striking her from the side as she tried to get out of its way. Happy brought the car to a screeching halt and threw it into reverse to have another run at the assassin, but she'd landed on her feet and bounded into the shadows near the loading dock. Natasha had doubled back and put the Cadillac between them. She could only guess where Belova was now. Nat scooped up Bruce's jacket and put her hands up as she approached the car. Pepper waited till she was within a few feet before opening a door and almost yanking her in by her jacket lapels.

"What the fuck are these people!? We saw you empty that magazine into her," Pepper sputtered.

"I don't know about the machines, but that was Yelena Belova, the other Black Widow. She's not really human anymore," Natasha tried to explain. "If we stay in the car, we might be okay till help gets here, but she's able to use some sort of control by . . ."

With a crash, what was left of the gate and part of the concrete barrier wall came down as the machines coordinated and rushed Bruce. He threw them into each other and backhanded one that charged at him late. The thing landed between him and the Caddy, struggled to stand then buckled and folded into a different shape that was as low to the ground as they were in the car. The machine was damaged, but it began to undulate and claw forward on its treads like a cross between a tank and some kind of stalking animal. Hap revved the engine.

"Hey, that thing is armored, Hap. Don't charge it. Get Bruce's attention," Natasha urged him.

"We're armored, too," he insisted petulantly.

"Not like a tank!" Pepper objected. "This is a rolling bunker. It can't take on an actual tank or robot or tankbot _thing_."

"It's a damned Decepticon," Hap grumbled and honked the horn in resignation before putting the car in reverse, so they weren't cornered by the clanking, crawling monstrosity. Hulk turned and glared at them, giving a low feral growl as he held up an arm to ward off the attackers' random blasts. For a precarious moment, they all wondered if he recognized them, but he quickly stepped between the Fleetwood and the creeping tank. He easily flipped it over and picked it up by the undercarriage as its repairing tracks spun uselessly. There was a flair of light behind them in the direction of the loading dock that caught Hulk's attention, and the tank's operator picked that moment to swivel and fire point-blank into his face. He tore off the section of the machine with the snub-nosed barrel and tossed it back toward the ruined gate. In those few seconds of distraction, he'd lost ground to the machines, which were now starting to fan out, no longer bottlenecked. Most of them were trying to flank him and advance on the Caddy, while others were concentrating their fire directly on Hulk.

"I'm not sure he'll be able to hold them off much longer," Nat said as she scrutinized the situation. Hulk moved quickly, but he was still somewhat sluggish. He was also pulling his punches and not flattening the vehicles like aluminum cans as he normally did with inanimate machines. "Come on, guys! Where are you?" she whispered under her breath.

Hap turned around and stared at Pepper with a look of frustration. She knew exactly what he wanted to do and shook her head. "NO, you are not a tank or Optibotamus. I have a better idea. Back us up to the 'Toy Bin.' I've wanted to give that suit a test run, and I can't think of a better reason." Hap looked at her with foreboding. "I gave you an order. I'm as safe in it as in this, and I can do a lot more good."

"Nat would probably do a better job," he complained.

"I am six inches taller. It won't fit her, or I'd have stuffer her in it myself," Pepper snapped. "Back us up now or I'll hop out and take my chances!" Hap grumbled about Tony boiling him in oil, but he backed the big automobile up to a storage area beside Tony's workshop stations and on the opposite end of the garage from the docks and gate.

"Hold it! What are you two doing?" Natasha demanded as she pulled her spare Widow's Bites from a compartment underneath one of the seats—she'd long since reloaded her Glock with a magazine of titanium-tipped ammo and pocketed another. She didn't want to get in the middle of their squabble, but she'd be damned if either of them was getting hurt on her watch.

"Looks like I'm going to play with the toys and help Bruce till the boys get here," Pepper said resolutely.

"Oh, no. They should be here any moment," Natasha objected just before another wave of machines backed Hulk up again. He'd been barreling through them, but they were steadily pushing him back again from the gate area and toward the loading dock. Nat was now certain he thought the vehicles were manned because he was doing much more maiming of the machinery and shoving them back than actual smashing. It really was just Bruce in charge in there. Adam would have already used a concussive "Thunder Clap" of the right strength to cripple the machines without bringing the building down and asked questions after the dust settled.

"Cover me," Pepper ordered Natasha in her decisive CEO voice, and she jumped out the rearmost door with Nat right behind her scanning for Belova and other trouble. There was an alcove with four garage doors making up a storage area next to the mechanic's shop and repair bays for Tony's collection of vehicles. Pepper ran to the farthest door and punched in a code. The lock made an audible click, and she had it half raised before Natasha had finished inspecting the area for spies and blonde spiders. "No power yet," Pepper reported as she hoisted the door the rest of the way up and used the flashlight on her StarkPhone to guide her into the pitch black of the storage area. "I'm hoping the onboard Friday is still with us. It should send a signal to Tony outside the network." Pepper activated the program with her phone and the unmistakable shine of an armor suit's running lights and a round arc reactor illuminated the storage room. Nat kept her gun out and only dared a quick glance over her shoulder at Pepper as she stepped into the custom-fitted and decidedly feminine suit of silver, white, and hot rod red. "Thank God I'm wearing slacks because I'd hate to try and get into this thing in a skirt," Pepper kvetched. "If you were four inches taller, Nat, I'd put you in it and send you up the elevator shaft."

It wasn't that Natasha hadn't wondered what it would be like to operate one of Tony's creations, but the incident with Bruce getting stuck in one had pretty much curbed any curiosity she'd had about seeing one from the inside. "Thanks, but no thanks. The shaft is blocked anyway if we're in lockdown," the former assassin remarked as the metal plates shifted around Pepper and the armor started sealing up.

"Not for long with this suit. It doesn't have specific weapons, but it's designed to use in emergency situations such as search and rescue missions," Pepper explained.

"You mean it has no repulsors, missiles, or plasma cannons?" Nat said with surprise and more than a little disappointment.

"It has repulsors for defense and to help the thrusters. There's a kickass laser torch for cutting through debris. Tony was working on an electromagnetic force field, but it only functions in pulses."

Natasha looked a bit perplexed, but she nodded. "That ought to be enough to push these things back."

"My thoughts exactly. Now get your ass back in the car, so I can help Bruce." With that, Pepper closed the faceplate and stepped out of the storage unit to engage the thrusters and propel herself forward. She lacked the airborne grace Tony and Rhodey had after logging thousands of hours of flight time and practice, but it was clear she knew what she was doing in the suit.

Natasha wished she had time to search the storage unit for more off-the-books surprises, but she quickly dismissed the thought as she crept back to the side of the big Caddy in which Hap waited nervously for her return. She knew the smart move was to get in the car, but she couldn't bring herself to lay low, not when Belova was unaccounted for and Bruce and Pepper were still engaging these crazy machines. At least one unfinished job still required her skills set, so she silently melted into the shadows as Hap growled at her with frustration from behind the wheel.

Adam had always hated tanks, and after today, Bruce completely agreed with him. His head hurt so much he could barely focus. While he fought, he couldn't think clearly enough to put more than a few thoughts together into words: _Stop. Metal. Keep. Nat_. _Safe_. They sputtered through his brain in fits and starts. He repeated those words like a fractured mantra to focus his mind. He wanted the stabbing pain behind his eyes to stop. He wanted the annoying blasts from the strange tank things to stop. Part of his mind said they were like Tony's armor and inside were people, so he wasn't smashing them flat against the floor or throwing them against the walls and low ceiling like he wanted—not even the dumb-ass shit who'd just unloaded in his face. Things hadn't been so bad when they were outside the gate. There, he'd had time to pull the treds and weapons off, but he'd soon realized they were able to do some self-repairs. In less than a minute, he'd been outnumbered and outgunned when the second wave of them joined the fracas and the metal gate came down. He'd kept them from outflanking him, but he'd been forced to backup ten then twenty feet on the sloping concrete. If he'd had time to focus, this would have pissed him off more, but he kept himself moving, knocking the machines back and throwing them into each other. He felt clumsy and awkward, but he was just managing it on his own. A small voice in the back of his mind assured him help would be here—it was already on the way. That thought allowed him to keep the panic down, but it was still steadily gnawing at what was left of his nerves.

There was a flash of light over his left shoulder, so he turned his head, hoping to see Tony. A familiar figure pulled up to hang in the air near him, yet the armor wasn't quite right. It looked . . . _feminine_? "Hulk . . . Bruce . . . it's Pepper. I'm here to help." The silver, white, and red armored figure hovered for a moment, giving him plenty of room, before setting down and physically shoving the closest machine backward, flipping it on its side, and using the downed vehicle like a bulldozer's shovel to push two others back.

Bruce grinned. "Rescue!" he said with a low, growling chuckle, and turned back to the tanks. So, Tony hadn't mothballed the "Pepper-needs-a-suit-of-armor" project after all. He'd been ready to make another pass through their ranks when something small landed on his back and he felt twin stabs of pain below and above his shoulder blades. He spun and slapped at the figure that dropped from his back and slashed at his right Achilles' tendon. Bruce roared and dropped to his knees to protect his legs in a martial-arts move. The small dark figure had flipped and landed in front of him. The attack had done no lasting damage, but by God, it got his attention.

As soon as the figure landed, the dark assailant ran at him with twin blades flashing electric blue. As it leapt into the air to deliver a blinding double stroke across his eyes, he waited and trusted his reflexes to grab the Russian assassin tight in his hand, pinning her arms outward between his fingers and slamming his fisted hand down on the concrete. The air went out of her, and the two electrified blades went skittering across the floor in opposite directions and winked out. He knew from her scent who it was, but her sweet rot was shifting to a cloyingly saccharine smell that seemed to envelop him. He didn't want to . . . hurt her. He sneezed and tried to clear his head.

As she pushed over and then flipped another machine, Pepper saw Bruce swat at something on his back, but she didn't realize what it was until her onboard Friday identified it as something "humanoid." Bruce had dropped to the garage floor on his knees and quickly pinned whatever it was to the concrete and the electrified weapons went spinning away, but now he seemed to just be staring at it as the machines advanced and started to maneuver around him. "Bruce, what's going on?" she yelled. He didn't answer. That had to be Belova!

Yelena was sure she had broken ribs and at least one wrist, but she could feel them knitting back together. It ought to hurt like hell, but she really couldn't feel the pain nor was her mind on it as she looked up into the green behemoth's dark eyes and angry face. "You don't want to hurt me," she wheezed out. "In fact, you like me and want to make me happy. You want to help me. I can make your pain go away."

Bruce shook his head. This wasn't right. She'd cut him with the blades. She wasn't a friend. He didn't know her . . . He didn't want . . . He didn't . . . He didn't remember. The pain . . . It would be nice if the pain went away. In fact, he felt . . . no, he didn't feel it so much.

Even in the unsteady light, Yelena saw his eyes grow less focused and his features start to slacken. That's what she wanted. "I can make you feel better. I know you're in pain. Just listen to my voice. You and I have a great deal in common. We're friends. I know Natasha. We're all friends. I'd like you both to come with me. If you come with me, she will follow us. The pain will be gone."

Bruce kept his right hand pinned to the floor with the blonde woman in his grasp, but he used his left hand to rub his eyes. His head felt fuzzy. He sneezed again. This wasn't right. Yet, he felt less of the pain. He wanted to leave. Where was Natasha? They should go. Maybe they should go with this woman? "Yes. We'll go with you," he murmured.

Pepper knew something was seriously wrong with Bruce. He was still on his knees and seemed to be dazed. The machines had quit firing on him and were now moving past him and his captive. Pepper was punching and pushing tankbots left and right, but she couldn't stop them nearly as quickly as he could. "Friday, what sort of enhancements does Yelena Belova have? Can she hypnotize people?"

"My files say she's dead, but she had the ability to absorb or mimic 'enhancements' the last time she encountered a group of heroes in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. She is known to have touched Luke Cage, Jessica Drew, and Misty Knight among others. Jessica Drew is able to use pheromones to convince others to do her bidding. She can influence emotions and possibly perceptions as well," the Interface concluded. "Above all, do not make contact with her skin."

As she listened, Pepper continued duking it out with tankbots that were now focusing their efforts on her. She really wasn't a violent person, but as they ganged up on her, she took it personally and used her laser torch to blind a few and crush their external weapons. The crunch of cannon barrels as she bent them down was quite satisfying. "Shit. I can't keep these machines corralled. We're going to have to do something dramatic. I need to use the force field to push these things back. Get it powered up, Friday. We don't want to kill anyone or take out a load bearing structure."

"I'm keeping that in mind, Ms. Potts. There are humans in most of these machines. The best I can do is a pulse. It should be enough to knock most of the mechanical units back and get Dr. Banner's attention. Position yourself fifteen yards to the rear and face the gate area for maximum effect." Pepper fell back and situated herself via Friday's calculations on her display. She prayed Natasha was safe in the car since that's where she should be. Pepper braced herself as the pulse built and then released from the reactor in the suit's chest as a force field blast that flattened or slammed the tanks back to crash against the ruined gate wall.

With his back to the blast, Bruce felt like his breath had been knocked out of him. He suddenly realized his head had cleared a bit, and he looked down at the strange figure in his grasp. The blonde woman was looking up at him in dazed trepidation. He loosened his grip, but kept her pinned to the concrete floor. Bruce roared in horror as his memories fell into place. Information from the leaked documents Jennifer had sent them last summer came flooding back into his head. This was A.I.M.'s work. These were some of the people who wanted to dissect him and turn him into a commodity like a slaughtered animal. And this . . . this resurrected assassin beneath his hand had tried to get him to bring Natasha and their children into A.I.M.'s clutches. Above all they would prize a fetus because . . . "NNNOOOOO!" His next impulse was to crush the creature in his fist, but he dug his fingers into the concrete where he'd pinned her instead. "YOU HAVE FUCKED WITH THE WRONG PEOPLE."

"No!" Belova spat out and tried to wriggle free from under his hand. She didn't have complete control of the pheromones she was putting out, so her fear was hyping up his, too. Her clothing protected her, but her bare face was inches away from making direct skin-to-skin contact with him. The last thing she wanted to do was absorb his "powers." She had learned last time not to introduce more random "gifts' and their accidental complications and side effects into her crowded biochemistry. Fuck! She was doing this job to be rid of them. Imagining further disfigurements made her cringe from him. She'd called off the AT-APs just before she'd made her move on him, but now she turned her head to engage her comm and send out the wordless order to resume their fire. A half dozen machines obeyed as more repaired and came back online.

Bruce flinched as the first wave of annoying blasts struck him, roaring out his anger. He didn't see the green portal appear before he backhanded the nearest advancing machine toward the loading dock. The tankbot bounced and hit the widening emerald portal, causing instant energy feedback and sending sparks in all directions. Bruce didn't notice the fireworks when he picked up the mercenary in his fist like a doll as he rose to his feet. "Call your squad off NOW," he growled.

"Not when I'm winning. Put me down and head to the front gate, monster!" she barked back at him. He could smell the sickly reek of her engulf him again, but this time he stayed focused. She wasn't the only one who could adapt in this garage. "I said, put me down NOW!" Belova repeated, her voice rising in anger.

"Not happening, sister," he growled as he studied her. Something she had done in combination with Rescue's force field pulse had finally given him some space from the pain to think more coherently. "What's in this for you? Money? The chance to fight Natasha? Why work with these people when they're the ones who mutilated you?" he asked her.

"Shut up! It's my business."

He took a long look at her and nodded, "You think they're going to fix you, but you know that's not going to happen. The Gamma is not going to heal you, Yelena. It only makes things worse. Trust me on this. Anything to the contrary is a lie." There was a flash of light from behind him near the loading dock, but he chose to keep his attention focused on her.

"I said, Заткни пасть!"

"Why go back to them? They're butchers. There have to be other people you can ask for help." She turned away from him, looking angry and ashamed that he'd recognized her desperation and felt pity for her. He sighed, thinking that under different circumstances this might have been Natasha. "You could have asked us. I'm at least willing to try."

She shook her head and laughed bitterly. "The lover of my enemy is not my friend. Дурачить! Лох, are you that naïve?"

"I know pain. I know what it's like to be an object lesson—a physical . . . mess . . . a monstrosity. Still, I think I could help you," he said with gruff sincerity.

She snorted. "'Physician heal thyself.' Forgive me if I am skeptical."

Reading people wasn't his strong suit, but he felt genuine empathy for her. "I may be a chronic case, but I'm improving. It's not easy, but I'm trying to live with it. That doesn't mean you'd have to be like this."

"Then come with me and work with A.I.M." she challenged with a sneer.

Bruce shook his head. This was where he drew the line. "No. We both know they have plans for me, which won't end well." A bright light flared on his left and he heard a familiar voice call his name.

"Have it your way then." It was time for one of her fallback plans. She'd freed her hands from his grasp when he'd picked her up, so now the assassin pulled a test tube-sized metal cylinder from her sleeve. She yanked the end off between her teeth and slammed the glowing rim of the tube into the softer web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. To his surprise, the instrument's burning sharp edges sunk in and the assassin twisted it hard, digging and slicing out a circular chunk of flesh the size of a quarter, which she jerked free of his hand. It produced a surprisingly small amount of green irradiated blood because the laser had cauterized the wound. The extraction device sealed itself shut and ceased to glow.

He groaned in agony through gritted teeth. The stab of pain and her quickness had caught him off guard, but Bruce made a grab for the tube with his left hand, and she juggled the slippery, smooth container with her numbed gloved fingers. The silver instrument spun in an upward arc, and his grip on the woman loosened as Bruce reached for the stolen sample. Belova twisted in his hand and kicked free of his grasp. _Damn her!_

After she left the Caddy's side, Natasha had stuck to the shadows as she worked her way around the garage's darker parameter, trying to locate Belova and get the drop on her foe. She knew grappling with the enhanced assassin would likely result in falling under the other Widow's control within seconds of having to inhale her potent pheromones, so Natasha's Glock with titanium bullets and her Widow's Bites were her first and second options. Her third came when Nat narrowed down Yelena's location to the far side of the garage just as the blonde leaped at Bruce. It was sheer luck that Natasha had been in the right place moments later as Bruce slammed Belova to the floor and the blue electrified blades went spinning. Nat gingerly scooped up the lost weapon that rolled within ten feet of her.

In the gloom, she carefully examined it, but didn't dare engage the blade and reveal her location. When she looked up, it was clear Bruce was in trouble. He was shaking his head, trying to fight off Belova's influence. Her first impulse was to charge to his aid, but her mind played through the worst possible scenario that ended with her own death by his mind-controlled hands. Pepper had been steadily helping Bruce fight back the machines, so she'd quickly noted he was out of action and in jeopardy. Natasha observed her and realized her friend planned to unleash a force field pulse, so she hastily retreated back in the direction of the Caddy and lay flat behind a large mechanic's upright tool chest. Most, though not all, of the machines were slammed back to the gate wall by the pulse, yet several were already struggling back to their upright positions when she looked up.

Bruce hadn't moved, but Natasha wasn't sure he was okay until he roared and backhanded the first machine within reach that fired on him. If there were people in these things, they had no sense of self-preservation. The thing bounced just as an emerald-sparked portal opened up on the loading dock. The machine was too large for the opening and gold, red, and green sparks flew as the device's electronics fried when it hit the portal's edges, and its fabricated carcass ricocheted into the pit-like bay of the dock. The thing smoldered and didn't move. The acrid smell of fried circuits and polymers quickly reached her. If there was a person in it, they weren't going anywhere fast. Bruce seemed to be okay for the moment—благослови его бог!—she could tell he was talking to Yelena. Natasha couldn't get his exact words, but she knew from his tone he was mostly calm, even sympathetic, and trying to reason with the woman. Natasha glanced back to the dock in time to see two familiar figures leap through the stabilized portal. _It was about damn time!_ She crossed the open floor between them warily while the weapons fire began to increase as more machines obeyed their field marshal's call. "Nice of you two to join us."

"I'm sorry! We tried," Adam apologized. "Are you okay?"

"Why aren't you in the Fleetwood?" Tony demanded before she could answer.

"Yes, I'm okay, and no, I'm not getting in the car."

"This is what it was designed for!" Tony insisted, his voice edged with irritation and fear.

"Belova is here. I'm not going to ground till she's out of action," Natasha shot back.

"Fuck! Like a squad of Stormtroopers and Decepticons isn't enough," Tony swore. "Bruce will not forgive himself if . . ."

"Here, put this on." Adam dismissed his shields and weapon, and he shifted his gray coat from his shoulders to hers preternaturally fast because he knew she'd argue with him.

"Adam, that is just going to slow me down! It's way too . . ." Natasha started to complain, but went silent as it adjusted to her size. She stopped objecting and put her arms through the sleeves. It embraced her and the buttons fastened down past her waist. "Shit," she said softly as she ran her hands over its surface. It shimmered with magic and protection, and the feel of it reminded her of a warm blanket and loving arms wrapped around her, the smell of apples and sage. She looked up at him and her breath caught.

Adam raised an eyebrow and flashed her a crooked smile. "You're welcome." Tony nodded and looked a little less panicky. "I'm going to open a portal into an unused part of my dimension, the Null. Then we're going to shove these things through to get them pacified and sort them out afterward. Some of them are empty drones like this one." He stepped over to the pit and opened up a portal beside the still sparking machine, making sure the bottom of the circle made contact with floor so it was grounded. Tony jumped down beside it and pushed the charred thing into the blindingly white void. The machine seemed to float like a balloon on a breeze or a boat on a current as soon as it passed the fiery edges of the portal. Tony stepped back and Adam closed the gateway.

"One down, thirty-five and one assassin to go," Tony said. "Put the next one up near Pepper on the downhill side, and we'll get this done as quickly as possible."

Adam's shield flared into existence as their illuminated actions attracted several machines' attention. He'd kept the rotating green shield construct wide rather than wrapping it around his arm and stepped in front of Natasha just as the volley of plasma blasts hit. "I'm going to ask one last time nicely," he said from the shelter of the magical shield. "Please go get in the fucking car."

If they hadn't been in a firefight, she would have decked him. "I'm going to go check on Bruce. He's trying to talk some sense into Belova, and I'm sure that's not gonna happen peacefully." She didn't wait for a reply and darted off into the gloom.

"Come on," Tony said. "We both tried, and you did as much as she'd let you. Let's banish these Transformers-wannabes to your Nullville place." Adam kept his shield engaged as he followed Tony up the slight incline while the Iron Man fired back his own blasts to cover them. "Hi, Honey! We're home," he said cheerily as they approached Pepper. Even though she was fully armored, it was easy to see Pepper's exasperation in her body language.

"Where have you been?!" she asked as she kicked a flailing machine.

"Whoa, you're going to damage the propulsion doing that! We were in Virginia, Ms. Virginia Potts. I'm sorry, but we got here as soon as possible. I'm racking up a ton of frequent-flyer miles with Adam already."

Adam ignored Tony and opened up as large of a portal as he could in that space. The Null flooded the garage with light that seemed to be reflecting off of snow or white desert sand. It was empty except for the first tank carcass which had floated a bit further away. There was no real gravity, no up, no down. Everything but time slowed down. He thought it was kind of relaxing. The Null was like a sensory blindingly bright sensory deprivation chamber with the addition that he'd intentionally made it difficult for living things to stay conscious. This would be the first time something live besides him would get to try it out, but he wasn't too worried. "Don't go more than a few feet in unless you want a nap," Adam warned Tony. He finished stabilizing the gateway, and immediately turned and looked for Bruce, calling out his brother's name.

Natasha had approached Bruce and his captive quietly, hoping he could convince Belova to surrender peacefully. Nat listened to their conversation and was not surprised to hear him offer her medical help. That was a given for Bruce, if someone was in need, he always offered his services when he was able. However, Natasha could hardly keep from growling when Yelena responded to him with sarcasm. Typical. She herself had tried for years to help the younger woman and been rebuffed and attacked more than once. They'd had a few cooperative moments, but Yelena had always turned on her at the first opportunity. Natasha cringed as Belova sneered at him, "Then come with me and work with A.I.M."

She saw Bruce shake his oversized head and refuse her firmly. "No. We both know they have plans for me, which won't end well."

Further down from the wall, she saw Adam's magical Gamma-powered sparks burst into action and give way to blindingly bright light streaming through from the other side as his portal widened. It held at a steady size big enough to roll the tankbots through, and Adam turned in their direction and called Bruce's name.

"Have it your way then," Belova said bitterly and sprang into action. Natasha cursed and sprinted forward, but the younger woman had already pulled out a shiny weapon and ripped something off in her teeth to reveal a glowing blue edge before plunging it into Bruce's hand. As she dug in and wrenched it free, Natasha realized it was an instrument like a core drill and designed to collect a tissue sample. She had to get that instrument away from Belova or the consequences would be catastrophic when A.I.M. weaponized what they could extract. Bruce managed to jostle the woman and the tube flew free. Natasha had two steps to time her leap as she used a downed vehicle to launch herself upward, grabbing the tumbling cylinder as it hung in the air at the apex of its arc. She curled into a roll as Bruce reflexively caught her in the crook of his left arm. Nat barely had time for an apologetic grin as she rotated out of his arms, but the surprised smile breaking across his broadened verdant features had been worth the look. Belova might be right to call him foolish, but not for holding out hope he could help her. Natasha knew the woman would never agree to accept help willingly. She would rather die a miserable rotting death than accept aid freely given like he'd just offered. Everything was conditional with her. Nothing was ever without cost, and there would always be strings attached. _Trust_ wasn't a word in her vocabulary whereas theft, murder, bribery, and blackmail were.

Natasha hit the concrete running and threw the container to Adam who was dashing to meet her. "Send that someplace safe. It's a tissue sample from Bruce." He dismissed his shield to catch the metal cylinder and spun counterclockwise. He'd seen most of what had just happened and was ready to open up a small, foot-wide portal to the kitchen in Dayton, tossing the grizzly prize onto the Formica tabletop where the container rolled to a stop next to the box of crayons. Adam dismissed the spell, but, before he'd completed his 360-degree pivot to face Natasha and Bruce again, a dark blur slammed into Natasha's left side and knocked her over ten yards onto one of the overturned tanks. Yelena Belova had her by the throat with her left hand and pinned flat against what passed for the vehicle's hood. Natasha had already started unloading both Widow's Bites into her assailant's chest three, four, five times before her reflexes slowed and her lips fell opened and her eyes lost focus.

"That's it my sweet сестра," Belova hissed out between clenched teeth as Natasha went limp. "Lie back and forget your happy ending." The assassin had another silver tube with a glowing blue edge in her fist, and she drove it down into Natasha's lower abdomen. Bruce's fist knocked the blonde away, flattening her against the half-destroyed gate wall. He leaped after her, throwing another punch that went high as she ducked and a section of the wall came down.

Adam had dodged Bruce and went straight to Natasha's side. "Oh, fuck her! This is like bad weed and too much ice cream all at once," the redhead muttered as she put her hand to her forehead and tried to sit up.

"No, lay still!" he told her. "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

"No. What happened?"

Adam examined the front of the coat and only found a slight marring of the leather over her stomach. "You're sure you don't hurt anywhere around your hips or stomach?" He prayed the coat had fulfilled its purpose and absorbed the impact of the assassin's blow.

"No, I'm fine. Belova got the drop on me, didn't she? My head feels like I have brain freeze."

Adam looked at her apologetically. He knew she was going to hate this and there would be payback later (painful payback), but they needed her to be out of Belova's reach long enough to deal with the assassin. The woman was enhanced and bent on destruction. Right now, Bruce didn't look like he was too far behind her as he struck the floor like a Whack-a-Mole game as Belova continued to duck, dodge, and roll as if to goad or torment him. Adam knew he had no choice. He bent over Natasha. She still seemed a bit woozy. "Please grab my neck and hang on." Nat looked at him suspiciously, but complied as Adam picked her up.

He concentrated and opened a portal with a minimal hand gesture and stepped through the opening onto the Bartons' gravel driveway. He dismissed the spell and looked around. It was a clear, cold, cloudless morning with skies as blue as Cap's eyes or maybe Thor's. It had been summer the last time he was here. There was still a lot of melting snow on the ground, including a diminishing snowman and the remains of a fort, but the big red Suburban was the only vehicle in the drive though it looked like there had been more there judging from the tracks in the snow. Laura's sisters and the cousins, no doubt. Natasha groggily rested her head on his shoulder as he climbed the steps to the porch. Before he could even ring the doorbell, Lila squealed, and she and Coop rushed to open it.

"Auntie Nat! What's wrong with her, Uncle . . . ?" Lila looked up at him and her mouth dropped open in recognition.

Cooper stepped protectively in front of his younger sister. "Mom," he called, and Laura came down the stairs with Nate on her hip.

"Mom! It's Auntie Nat and Adam, but he's all grown up!" Lila explained excitedly.

"Hi," Adam said to Laura as she stepped forward staring at him. "We . . . we have met, but I was a lot bigger and greener. We had a nice talk." She nodded slowly with understanding and set the toddler in his playpen. "May I lay Natasha down?" he asked.

"You were a lot littler, too," Lila corrected him sternly. Lovely, now he had two miffed females who wanted to kill him. Who'd be next, Laura or Pepper?

Laura stared at him one more heartbeat before she processed as much as she needed for the moment. "Yes, of course. Come in, come in! Is she hurt?" Laura quickly cleared the couch, so Adam could lay Natasha down.

"I'm okay," the redhead said slowly as Adam transferred her from his arms to the comfortably well-used couch. "I think the fresh air helped. My head is clearing. Belova really hit me with those pheromones. I'll be fine in a few minutes," she reassured them.

"We need to get the coat off and check your stomach," he told her. Adam unfastened the buttons and opened the coat up then Natasha shrugged her shoulders out of it. She unzipped her own jacket that was underneath, pulled up her shirt, and half unzipped her pants. Adam swallowed and ran his hand across the smooth skin of her lower abs and stopped briefly on an old scar, "Does anything feel tender or sore?" He pressed down gently on the left, right, and below her navel. He had a good bit of practical experience through Bruce, but he wasn't the one with the degrees.

Natasha shook her head, "It all feels fine. Did she punch me?"

"She tried to use the same kind of tissue sampling device on you as she did Bruce. I was sure she'd stabbed you with it." He sat back on his heels, finally feeling like he could exhale with relief. "I know you're not going to be happy with me, but I have to go back, and you need to stay put here . . . if it's okay?" he asked looking up at Laura for permission.

The brunette nodded, "Yes. That's no problem." She'd nearly called him Bruce. They looked so much alike, but his voice was deeper and those eyes . . . No, he wasn't Bruce.

Natasha frowned at him, but she took his hand and pressed it on her stomach again. Adam knew what she wanted, which was something his brother couldn't do. Adam emptied his mind and reached out like he had earlier in the day. He heard two heartbeats underneath hers. The faster one was the girl and the slower one was the boy. He smiled, "As far as I can tell, they're both fine." He cleared his throat, "I'm sorry, but I have to go back. I'll see you here again as quickly as I can."

"Take care of Bruce. He was trying to help her, and Belova turned on him. Her pheromones aren't doing exactly what she thinks they are." Natasha shook her head sadly, "She's acting recklessly like she has a death wish when she toys like that with him."

Adam nodded as he stood up, "You may be onto something." He thought she definitely was, but they couldn't discuss it further now.

Natasha leaned forward and pulled the gray leather coat out from behind her. "You'll probably need this."

He very nearly told her to keep it, but Adam knew there would be an argument. He took the coat and put it over his shoulders where it adjusted back to fit him as he turned to Laura, "Thank you, Mrs. Barton. I'm sorry to be so brusk."

Her eyes had gone wide as she saw what happened with the garment. "Call me Laura, please. It's all right, um, Adam. We can talk when you get back."

Lila looked at him with an intense, pleading stare that he couldn't ignore. "I promise, Lila. I'll bring Uncle Bruce back."

"Good. Will you be small again?" She was trying to be stoic now, but it was clear she wanted her playmate back, and he didn't seem to fit the bill anymore.

Adam licked his lips, "No. I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice. I had to grow up, Lila Lou." He held out his right fist for her to bump, and he was relieved and grateful when she did.

"Hurry up then. I've missed you."

"I will. I've missed you, too, Lila Lou," he assured her before he stepped out the door and back into the cold, bright air.

 ** **End Notes:**** Yes, Pepper and Hap are badasses and can save the day! From the beginning I have wanted to get Pepper into the Rescue armor, so I hope you are as pleased with that as I am. I've also wanted to bring Yelena Belova into the main story since Autumn_Frost suggested her over a year ago and she appeared in one of Nat's flashbacks. Yelena is the jealous younger sibling Nat never wanted, but still feels a bit responsible for anyway. I tried to stay close to the comics, but changed up a few things about her demise there and gave her a resurrection. Bruce sees both a bit of Nat and little of himself in her, too, but where Nat sees Bruce's humanity as his strength, Yelena just thinks its a vulnerability to exploit. Next chapter, the fight continues! Please comment! I want to know what you think.


	63. Chapter 63

**Chapter 63: A Sword to Fall On**

 ** **Summary:**** Everyone hates tanks. Yelena Belova has her own plans. Plans have consequences. Adam is a good bro. Hap wishes people would just get in the damn car! It's a good thing Clint put in that new water heater.

 ** **Notes:**** Yes, you've been very patient. We do earn that adult rating again. A big thanks to EmilyGracie who helped with beta duties. Everyone send some healing vibes to Autumn_Froste who is not feeling well and wish her a speedy recovery.

Pepper and Tony had both decided independently they hated tanks, at least as much as Bruce did. Not that their large friend was helping that much with getting them through the portal since he'd been smashing a lot of other things while trying to handle Yelena Belova, the enhanced other Widow. Since Adam had vanished with Natasha—fingers crossed all was okay and she didn't kill him—Tony had stolen more than a few looks between tankbots to note the blonde assassin's skills and abilities. Pepper hadn't taken it very well when she caught him looking more than once."Eyes on machines!" she said as she swept a two-fingered gesture from her faceplate toward his. She couldn't see him smile apologetically behind the suit, so he shrugged dramatically and threw up his hands.

"Eyes on machines!" she said as she swept a two-fingered gesture from her faceplate toward his. She couldn't see him smile apologetically behind the suit, so he shrugged dramatically and threw up his hands.

"Now, Mister!" She was so going to make him do something unpleasant later if he didn't quit goofing off.

Pepper and Tony had both given Bruce a wide berth, but Pep getting pissed or not, the engineer was keeping tabs on his friend's situation all the same. Bruce had tagged Belova a number of times, and she'd rebounded and recovered almost instantly. Tony noted that when her nose bled, her blood was oddly dark. He wasn't a biologist, but that couldn't be a healthy sign. All the same, she was tough and didn't slow down. He'd noticed she was sloppier with her form and less fluid than Natasha, but her movements were much quicker than a normal person's. Natasha might be able to out think her, but he'd have to give Belova the advantage in an impromptu a brawl. The engineer estimated she was capable of more than human speed in short bursts. He decided Belova might not punch with the power of a Hulked-out Bruce or Thor, but Tony thought she could match Steve blow for blow and maybe know how to make them count more.

In contrast, Bruce alone made for a rather sluggish Hulk. No pun intended, but he was markedly slower than Adam's manifestation and, frankly, he looked a little awkward and uncomfortable in that thick green skin. Tony was sure the slower speed and rough edges had more to do with Bruce's lack of solo practice and his cautious attitude than his true capabilities . . . not that he wasn't putting his heart into the current fight and holding his own with a tough, seasoned combatant. Tony winced as Pepper tossed a chunk from a gun barrel she'd just pulled off a tankbot and hit him in the back. "What do you have against the equipment, woman?!"

"More blasting! Less gawking!" she said hotly over the comms.

Geeze! Thank goodness, Pep was down to the last feisty half dozen of these things. He gave her about ten minutes max to finish them.

Initially, Yelena had been in pure survival mode as the Hulk had punched her into the gate wall and then kept coming at her. She'd lost the extractor, but it really didn't matter to her. Fuck A.I.M. Fuck the mission. Fuck Yevgeny Eder. Yelena had her own plans now. Banner was no Romanoff, but he was making a better proxy than she'd hoped he would. After a few exchanges, as she and the green bruiser had gotten a feel for each other's moves, it had become nearly as absorbing as a chess game. She enjoyed the cat-and-mouse aspect, especially since he didn't know he was the mouse just yet. Banner's panicked anger had fueled his opening attack to save his mate and progeny, but he'd shifted into grim determination once the dark-haired magician had whisked Romanoff away. Banner clearly meant to bring Yelena into custody, no matter what: that mindset was something she could work with to get what she now wanted. She knew or could guess at his fears and doubts, so it was time to play.

Banner, she decided, was just like Romanoff in some annoying ways. They both claimed to want to help her. How presumptuous! Before she was done, Yelena was going to get him to help her all right. Their exchanges had pulverized the wall separating the sections of the garage, and she'd stayed just ahead of him, dodging and jumping while landing the occasional blow to select nerve clusters to cause him pain. She'd signaled the remaining AT/APs to focus their fire at his head and face. She wanted him hurting and not thinking. The bigger and angrier he got, the better.

When she'd initially signed up with A.I.M. to gain an advantage, an upgrade, that would put her ahead of her arch rival, she'd only focused on the positive side: the physical strength, speed, and endurance it could give her. She'd worked hard to take the Black Widow title from Romanoff for years. She'd thought enhancement would give her the edge once and for all. What she didn't count on was how hollow that advantage was and how it had undermined everything she once valued. By not defeating Romanoff on a level field, she'd cheated herself out of feeling any satisfaction. She'd sold her purpose, her soul for what? Meaninglessness? When she'd become indestructible, she'd ruined their sisterly game of assassins. She was something less than a Widow now. She'd almost let herself become a pawn, a tool, cannon fodder. That competition had been her reason for existence, but she'd ruined it without resolving anything in her favor.

Then, A.I.M. had physically ended her. Terminated her at the press of a button by blowing her up from the inside. Yelena had become Humpty Dumpty after the fall, but no matter how well Yevgeny Eder had pieced her back together, she felt like nothing fit right any longer. She was missing chunks and fragments of herself; she felt hollow, empty, purposeless. She'd wanted to be superior so much, only to find it was all rotten inside. She'd failed. She'd lost. She'd made herself a monster. Every look in the mirror now proved that. She would stand and trace her fingers over the scars and only feel ashamed that she'd chosen this mutilation of mind and body. Every day reeked of failure, and now she was dying. Not all at once, she'd tried that a few times, and Yevgeny hadn't let her stay dead. Why had he taken her peace from her? Now, it was a long, slow slide downward that her powers were prolonging. Her fingers were going numb. She couldn't feel her injuries. Her blood was turning thick and black. She could barely taste it in her mouth when Hulk caught her with an uppercut while her thoughts distracted her. She missed the honest pain and fatigue her body used to feel. It proved she was real and alive. Now, all she wanted was peace.

Yelena had been furious to find Natasha had abandon their calling, their training, and their sisterhood. S.H.I.E.L.D. The Avengers. Marriage plots. Happy endings. They were lies told in fairy tales. Recalling that stab of anger, betrayal, and envy now was the most she'd felt in a long while, but her bitterness wasn't enough to keep her going. Not any longer. She was tired. Yevgeny promised to fix her body with samples from this lumbering, gamma-infused mutant, but she was now little better than a zombie, a failure, a smudge in a ledger, something that should have been written off and stayed dead. If she'd believed in souls, she was sure hers had gone on without her. Now, getting her body to follow was going to be the final challenge. She sprang into the air and delivered a vicious roundhouse kick that bloodied Banner's nose. All Yelena had to do was get him worked up enough, and he'd take her out. He'd be her sword to fall on.

Speaking of bladed weapons, she finally spotted one of the two electrified blades she'd lost earlier and scooped it up. Yelena recognized it as a glorified scalpel that dear Eder had taken a hand in upgrading to a weapon. Now was the time to up the game a level as well. Banner had bounded after her like a huge hound. She turned and braced herself, thrusting the weapon forward and aiming it at his chest before she engaged the power to her blade. He swiped it to the side with his massive hand, but she spun with the momentum of his blow, ducking down and going for his legs as she came around. He stumbled and roared in pain, and she jumped on his shoulders, riding him to the floor. "She's dead, you know," she hissed in his ear before leaping away. He pushed himself off the ground and glared at her before lunging.

Yelena leaped and laid a gory trail with her blade down his spine. The razor-sharp edge had penetrated no more than a few inches deep, but it had to have hurt like hell. To her surprise, he didn't roar, he just gathered himself up and ground his teeth as he shot her a murderous stare. _Yes!_ "You know I gave her a lethal dose. First, your child is going to die, and then Romanoff is going to waste away in excruciating pain." She watched the emotions play across that grimacing green face before he sprang at her. Yelena jumped to the side, but he'd finally anticipated her move, slamming a fist down in her path. She sprang straight up and twisted, brandishing the crackling blade in his face to distract him as she continued to rotate and shift her trajectory down the floor's incline to get some distance between them. "At least I saved the little whelp from a fate like yours. You and Romanoff are pathetically selfish, thinking you deserve to bring another tainted life into the world."

Bruce didn't waste another sound on her. He barreled after the assassin, focused on running her down. It hardly registered as she stuffed the weapon in her front armor that Belova was now sprinting toward a green light.

To be on the safe side, Adam had decided to double up on portals to avoid dumping a tankbot on the Bartons' driveway. He was in enough trouble already without Laura wanting his head, too. As Adam had told Tony, he couldn't close himself off from reality while Bruce was Hulked out without going comatose and joining his brother's headspace. He could fight it off for a bit, but it would hurt a lot. That was the theory they'd worked out, and he was pretty certain it was correct. Honestly, he did not want to put it to the test if he could help it. This meant he'd need to keep the first portal open from the farm and not close it until the one to the garage under the tower was established. The air pressure would be his guide.

Adam had lost count of the number of times he'd cast the spell that day, but he didn't feel fatigued, despite his dull throb of a headache that continued to linger. He slipped the sling-ring on again, took a deep breath, visualized his next moves, and opened a green-sparked entrance onto the lake shore at his version of the upstate lodge in his own dimension. The air was markedly warmer there, and Adam wished for a moment he could stay once he'd stepped through. He shook his head and chuckled dryly because he knew that wasn't going to happen for a while. The magic user rose in the air above the lake to have a good look at the area and get a little distance from the other portal. Best not to tempt fate with too straight of a line between holes. The thirty-something-foot drop over water ought to discourage any intruders as well. All seemed normal in the area below, so Adam concentrated on opening the second gateway to the garage. He had his shield spell half queued as if it was on speed dial just in case. The loading dock should still be far enough away from any fighting, but there were no guarantees. He hoped Bruce had Yelena in custody and everyone was just waiting for him to help separate the people from the machines in the Null. They were basically in stasis there, so he wasn't too worried. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to count on that for long.

He could feel the change in air pressure and his ears popped when the second portal opened, so he knew it was safe to dismiss the spell on the first passage to the farm. Before the new portal had reached a foot in diameter, he could sense Bruce was in turmoil. Adam only briefly considered shutting the portal and mentally reuniting with Bruce. His comatose body would be fine floating in the air here, but taking control from his brother would likely cause a lot more harm than letting him work the situation through by himself. Bruce had to learn how to be Hulk. As the portal widened, Adam moved to the side and backed up a good seven yards, brought up his shield, and tried to open up communication with Bruce: _She's okay. The babies are fine._ _Breathe. Center yourself._ He wasn't sure he'd gotten through to his brother at all, but Adam kept repeating his message like a beacon anyway.

On the other side of the widening opening, it was too dark for Adam to make anything out, but it seemed much quieter than when he'd left—just a few intermittent plasma blasts echoing from a distance and the flicker of his portal to the Null. The next instant, Bruce roared, "NNNOOOO!" and Adam saw Belova leaping through with Bruce right behind her. Adam widened the portal, but Hulk's left shoulder and back still raked the side. The portal had been grounded on the garage side as it touched the surface of the loading dock, but the sparking rim still burned even Hulk's thick hide. Bruce's large right hand just missed closing around the woman's legs as their momentum carried them through. Then gravity took over. Obviously, Belova hadn't been counting on a four-story drop over shallow water, but she managed a tuck before she hit. Bruce landed on all fours like a cat in the shallows with a much larger splash. Adam swooped down, ready to attempt a binding spell he'd read about and not had a chance try yet, but Bruce waved him off, "MINE! Clear out or she'll poison you, too." Adam observed his brother's eyes were wide and wild. He was noticeably gasping for air and rubbed at his arm close to the fast-healing blisters the portal had caused. Adam felt panic and grief enveloping his brother's consciousness. This wasn't good.

Belova stood up in the waist-high water and coughed up what looked like blackened bile before she turned to them, wiping the stain from her chin with the back of her left hand before slicking her soaked blonde bob back away from her face with her right. Belova's eyes narrowed as she studied the two. "All in the family, I see. Fly away Harry Potter or whoever you are and plan the funerals. The redhead has made this fool a widower before . . ." Bruce didn't wait for her soliloquy to continue. He charged Belova and punched her squarely in the chest plate, sending her into the deep water past the rock shelf where she sunk like a stone.

Adam looked on in horror and confusion. "Stop! Ignore what she said, Bruce. Natasha is fine. Laura is looking after her. That woman was lying. She's just trying to use you."

Bruce looked up at Adam as the magic user landed on his feet in the water nearby and waded toward him. Bruce looked crushed and defeated. He shook his wet green head. "No, I saw the blood. It was black. She poisoned Nat. The children are gone." He scrubbed his hands down his face. "Now, all I can do is make Belova pay for what she's done!" He sobbed and dove after the assassin who'd failed, thus far, to resurface.

"No! Wait! That's not true!" Adam yelled, but Bruce was already diving beneath the water's surface. His brother wasn't making sense. Belova must have used her pheromones to influence his thinking. Adam looked around him in a panic. He could force the landscape to change, and spit them both up on the shore, but it would take time he didn't have. Adam was pretty sure neither Pepper's nor Tony's suit was water tight since neither was completely equipped. "Think!"

There was a way, but it might make things worse, much worse. Yet, nothing better was coming into his brain, so Adam rose up out of the lake and quickly levitated back to the portal in a spray of dispersed water. His head was already aching with dull throbs, so why not go for a full brain-imploding migraine? He stepped over the magic threshold and ran right into Pepper and Tony on the loading dock as the pain engulfed him. The psychic bond he had with Bruce when he was Hulk began to wrench his consciousness away from his body. "It's Bruce; she got to him," he sputtered, grabbing onto someone's crimson metal shoulder as his vision narrowed and he resisted the integration. "I need to help him."

"I've got you, Buddy. Hang on a moment," Tony pleaded and propped Adam up. He knew the situation was dire if Adam was doing this, but they needed answers from him first.

Pepper's faceplate opened and she looked at Adam anxiously. "Where's Natasha?"

"I took Nat to Laura on the farm. She's fine. Bruce isn't. Belova wants to die, and she's manipulated Bruce into doing the honors. I have to go to him."

"Can you shut the door to the Null place?" Tony asked. "We're finished with the tank things. I don't think we want to explain that portal or this one to the authorities if they show up."

Adam nodded. "Might as well add kidnapping to the list." He dismissed the earlier portal and the one behind him before he finally passed out on the armored duo.

"He'll be fine," Tony reassured Pepper. "This is Adam's quickest way to help Bruce. Let's get him in the Fleetwood." The couple put Adam's arms over their shoulders and headed for the shelter of the Caddy.

"It's about damn time someone got in the car like they're supposed to!" Happy groused as he opened the door for them and helped deposit the unconscious sorcerer in the passenger compartment.

Adam was walking in a vaguely familiar suburban neighborhood and calling for Bruce, but it was a dark, almost moonless night with the smell of rain on the way. He stumbled along an overgrown sidewalk, hurrying because he was late. Adam thought he heard a door slam off to the left, so he followed the next driveway up to a house that was more familiar, yet strangely off kilter. There were no lights on inside, just the front and back porch security lights cutting through the gloom. He trotted around the house through the tall grass and climbed onto the back porch. The screen door was ajar, so Adam pushed it opened on its corroded hinges and knocked on the backdoor. No one answered, but he tried it anyway and the door was unlocked. He opened it and called his brother's name. "Bruce, I know you're here." Adam flipped the light switch on and looked around. There were wet footprints leading from where he stood at the doorway into the room and under the kitchen table. He sank down on his haunches and looked underneath. "May I join you?"

"No," said a small, muffled voice. Faintly glowing green eyes looked back at him.

"That was a rhetorical question. Move over," Adam slid under the table and sat next to Bruce who was younger, early teens or so, and still rather wet. Adam avoided the puddle that had formed under his brother as Bruce sat with his thin arms wrapped around his knees. The posture was very much Bruce's, but he'd never appeared younger than Adam before. This wasn't Adam's dimension, so they had to be in Bruce's head. As his eyes adjusted, he studied his brother. Bruce had a purple-gray pair of compression shorts on that covered his thighs almost to his gangly knees. He wasn't old enough to have shaved yet, but the down was noticeable on his upper lip and chin. Even damp, his hair was a few shades lighter than it would be five or six years hence. His glasses were missing. Bruce didn't make eye contact with Adam, but instead he stared past him, looking quite lost and vulnerable.

"Natasha is fine, and the babies are fine. She got a pretty big dose of Belova's pheromones, but Laura and the kids are there to keep an eye on her. They're probably plying her with hot chocolate and video games right now."

"Thanks. I appreciate you getting her out of there." Bruce's voice cracked a bit and his ears reddened and his cheeks got blotchy. Adam wasn't sure if this was from embarrassment or anger. Then Adam noticed his brother's jaw muscles working. Bruce was definitely upset, but his emotions were currently directed inward. This couldn't be good.

"Tell me what happened," Adam prompted him.

Bruce finally looked at his brother, but he didn't raise his head from resting on his folded arms. "I was played," he mumbled.

"That's what graduates of the Red Room do. That's part of why Nat thought she was a monster, right?" If Adam could just keep Bruce talking, he'd get through this funk.

"I knew that going in, and I still let Belova suck me into her game. She called me a _fool_ and she was right," Bruce sighed miserably.

Adam was genuinely curious about their exchange of words. It had certainly gotten under Bruce's skin. "Well, what did she mean?"

He blew out his breath in a huff. "That I'm stupid and selfish and this situation is hopeless. I'm naïve for trying to change things . . . for trying to help people who don't want it. For thinking I'm anything more than a tool to be used."

Adam reached over to put his right hand on Bruce's back to comfort him. He fully expected to become his junior high school twin, but nothing happened to him. He didn't change. There was no spark that set off his own cells to recalibrate. _Curiouser and curiouser._ Adam ran his hand across his brother's shoulders to grip his right deltoid and pull him a little closer. To his surprise, instead of stiffening up and pulling away, Bruce leaned into him and rested his head against Adam's chest, wanting the physical contact. Adam embraced him more comfortably. If Bruce had been smaller, Adam would have held him like Bruce had done for him. He'd never been touched nor cradled by their mother except through Bruce. They sat there embracing each other for a few minutes with Bruce's breath catching, and Adam just holding him while he tried to work through why their connection seemed to have changed. Was it just different or were they becoming more distant? More like "normal" or something else?

"I don't want to do this anymore, Adam," Bruce finally said in a tired voice that had dropped to his adult range. Bruce straighten up a bit and shifted into his normal adult self. "I don't want to fight anymore."

Adam ran his hand through his brother's curls that were no longer wet, but dark with a bit of gray. "It's okay. This is going to be better than . . ."

Bruce pulled back, tears starting to brim and spill. "No. It's not. I'm not good at being big or heroic or green. There's too much sound and light and feeling. Even when my mind is clear, I don't make the right choices. You're good at it, man. When I do it, I suck! I just get used like a crazed attack dog with no ability to discriminate between friends and enemies. Ross wanted me to become a weapon, but I'm too damn flawed to be anything but a nuclear option. I hesitate when I should fight. I damage or destroy . . . what I don't mean to hurt. Adam, I injure people! I think I . . . I may have . . ." He couldn't quite make himself say it, but the words didn't have to be said for Adam to understand.

All Adam could do for Bruce was listen and empathize. This was not the way he'd hoped Bruce's first time to solo as the Big Guy would go. He'd wanted to walk him through it, show him it was something he could manage and put to good use. He'd hoped they could work together. The Brothers Banner would be there to save the world—yada, yada. Instead, it seemed like one traumatic turn had led to another and left Bruce feeling completely undermined. Were they really back to square one? Fear? Hate? Self-loathing? Please no.

Bruce shook his head. "I wish you could take this away. I don't want to be Hulk again. I can't do it. I'm not fit to be something this powerful. I could have brought down the tower. There has to be some way to be rid of this now that you're your own person."

The magic user shook his head. "Bruce, you know it doesn't work like that. I would take the Gamma all on myself if I could, but I can't remove the ability from you. We're both made to house the Gamma. It's tied to our genetics. Both of us have adapted to house it now. There is no choice except to harness it. As long as the Gamma is there inside, you'll be connected to Hulk. But, that's really not what matters. Whether your body changes or not, the mentality, the capacity for destruction is still there. Taking Hulk out of the equation won't solve the underlying issues we both have."

Bruce shifted, but he didn't say anything. Adam chewed at his lower lip for a moment, thinking hard. He moved so he was squared up with Bruce and clasped his hands to make sure he was listening. "Look, I believe some of the problem is just that you've not had the opportunity to be Hulk on your own. You need to get comfortable with it. That's mostly my fault. Since the accident, it was my only outlet to be in the real world till now, so you didn't get time in the driver's seat until a few days ago. If you could just spend some unhurried time inside him, I know it's something you could manage, so it's not such an ordeal for you. Hulk doesn't have to be a weapon. He can be a really useful force for good. You know this in your heart. You just have to learn how to harness the Gamma."

"No! No, it's not like that," Bruce insisted. "I don't want it. I'm not good at it. I hate it! I'm just dangerous, and no amount of practice is going to make me feel 'comfortable' or safe. I'll always be a danger to the people I'm around." Bruce realized how hard he was squeezing and let go of Adam's hands. "In case you didn't notice, the stakes just got a lot higher in the last 48 hours." Bruce pulled away and wrapped his arms around his knees again. "I didn't get Natasha out of harm's way first. You're the one who saved Nat. I went after Belova. I hated her more in that moment, more than I . . . more than I loved anyone." Bruce buried his face in his hands and quietly wept.

Adam still wasn't sure what to do, but he couldn't stay quiet in response to Bruce's suffering, especially when he felt it wasn't necessary. "Listen to me. We worked together. You did what needed to be done, and I did what I could to help. That wasn't a shortcoming on your part. You've got this idea in your head that you have to be perfect, but you don't. You just need to be you. We don't have to live up to Dad's expectations. You always exceeded them, and it never did any good in his eye. He was a narcissistic jerk and a bully. He doesn't matter anymore. Mom loved you. Aunt Susan loved you. Betty loved you. Your friends love you. Natasha loves you. I've loved you since before there was a you or a me."

Bruce didn't say anything, so Adam continued. "Today has been traumatic. Yes, I suppose Belova played you, but she graduated from the best program in the world for manipulation. You tried to help her, which is more than I would have done. I'm not inherently a good person the way you are. I'm not like you in that way. I'm not proud of it, even if that's what's helped me survive." Adam touched Bruce's shoulder again. "I have to think about it and work at it. That's just how it is. I like being Hulk. On the other hand, being Hulk isn't easy for you, so you're going to have to work at it. You're not going to be able to suppress it 100% of the time. You tried that strategy, and it's a no-win situation."

Adam gripped Bruce's shoulder more firmly. "If you don't put some time and sweat into it, you _will_ be dangerous. You'll always be on the razor's edge. What you need to work on now is how to balance out the good that comes naturally to you with the potential to be powerful when you have to be, so you can continue to do good. Tony called it a 'terrible privilege.' I know you remember him saying that if I do."

Bruce turned so his back was to Adam. "I can't do it," he said flatly.

" _Can't_ isn't the same as _Won't_. You've not had enough time to know what you're rejecting. You're the scientist. You've not done enough research to reach a valid conclusion yet."

Bruce shook his head. He felt so completely overloaded, like his head would explode. He wanted this to work, but he couldn't take in anymore ideas or information. His default was to dig in his heels and withdraw. "No. Not when you know it's a waste of time because it won't work!" Bruce's eyes were beginning to glow more brightly. He felt the Gamma dancing along his spine and shut his eyes tight. Breathe in . . . breathe out.

"Bruce, give this some time. It's going to get better," Adam pleaded. "If I learned to do it over the years, so can you if you put in the effort. You don't need to get it perfect. Just get that notion out of your brain. All you have to be is good enough to harness it."

His brother shook his head resignedly. "No, you're wrong. I'm not a good person, and I'm a worse monster." Bruce wrapped his arms around his head and rocked forward and back. "Too much. Too much . . ."

"Stop. Everyone who knows you as a friend would agree with me. You're not perfect, but you're a good person who never gives himself enough credit. I've lived here in your head. I know this is true."

Bruce turned his head to look at Adam again. "I hurt you and imprisoned you. Of all people, Adam, you should know what damage I'm capable of doing, even without Hulking out."

"And I forgave you, and you should let go of it. Time to move on." Adam was getting frustrated—almost as frustrated as his brother. Sometimes Bruce could really make simple things hard. He was so damn stubborn, but two Banners could play at that game. If he kept his brother engaged, he'd get him talked through this bout and back on track. There was a fine line between overloading and breaking through it.

"I can't. I really can't. I am responsible for imprisoning you. I've killed so many . . ."

"No, _I_ did that. It's on _me_. You may have entrapped me when you thought I was the cause of the problem, but when you realized who I was, you forgave me, set me free. It's time you did the same thing for yourself."

Bruce looked at him with eyes that still glowed dully. "Adam, I can't let go of this. Don't you get it? I fucked up yet again. I think I murdered Belova."

Adam shook his head and then leaned forward and touched his forehead to Bruce's. "I get that, but I really doubt she's completely gone. Even if she is, it's not your fault. Come on, take me to her. Let's go see how bad it really is. I think you'll feel better." Before Bruce could argue, Adam ducked out from under the table and took ahold of Bruce's hand to pull him out and help him stand. Bruce straightened up and squared his shoulders. His eyes were still glowing as he touched the side of Adam's face.

Adam inhaled sharply and then he was looking out with Bruce through Hulk's eyes. It was quiet and peaceful and cool in the bluish filtered light. They were in the deep part of the lake about 50 feet down in the clear water. Hulk didn't need to breathe, so they floated suspended upright there in the water and stared at Yelena Belova. Adam almost didn't recognize her because she looked so peaceful and serene despite her dark tactical gear. Her eyes were shut, and she looked silvery pale with her short hair floating like an ethereal crown around her fair head. He couldn't tell if she were alive or dead. He didn't feel anything coming from her: not a thought nor a heartbeat. His first instinct was to swim closer and touch her to find out more. However, Bruce held him up. "Stop. No nearer. You don't want to curse her further with our 'gifts' if she's still alive. Just watch."

Because the light above was strong and reflected off the stony bottom, Adam was able to focus in on the details and spot what concerned Bruce. There was a dark swirl of something leaking out from the neck and front of her clothing, and then he noticed the small tendrils gently wafting out of her ears, her nose, and her barely parted lips. It was like oil in that it was slowly rising and not mixing with the water. She had to be dead, especially if this ichor was leaking out into the water.

"Holy . . . what do you think it is?" he asked Bruce.

"I don't know. It has too much cohesion to be just blood. It might be something mixed with other bodily fluids? I'm not sure, but it can't be good. I'm afraid if we move her, more of it will be dispersed faster. I don't want to find out what that will do here in your realm."

"No, you don't want it on you either." Adam didn't want it, or her body for that matter, here in his lake either. What a freaking mess, but it could have been worse. He knew it was too late for him to help Yelena Belova, and he was certain she wouldn't have wanted that. However, a dead (or maybe not so dead) body couldn't stay here in his realm, and they had to stop the biohazard. He didn't think he could conjure the Mirror Dimension here in the lake while using this body. Manipulating the environment from inside Hulk would be touch and go at best, but he was going to have to try something. "Would ice work for a means of containing her?" he asked Bruce.

"Yes, if you can encase her well enough without cracks. It would be better than nothing. I don't think it will do any more damage than what I already did to her," Bruce said sadly.

"No, Bruce! You are not going there. She did this to herself. You were just the bus she stepped in front of."

"I wish I could see it that way."

If he hadn't been in the same headspace with Bruce, Adam might have dope-slapped him. The sad sack routine needed to stop here. "She had a deathwish, Bru. She had your number, and she pushed you until you quit pulling your punches. I'm sure she was pumping the air full of pheromones to manipulate you as well." Bruce didn't try to argue with that, so Adam went on. "Frankly, I'm not going to be convinced she's _dead_ dead till Stephen or another doctor does more than just check for a pulse. Belova has come back from much worse than a punch to a chest plate and drowning."

"I know and I agree. Whomever takes custody will need to make some special arrangements," Bruce acknowledged. Maybe he was finally coming out of his funk.

Adam sighed, "Aside from the obvious concerns, what I'm really worried about now are the affects this ichor is having on the water and what's in it, including you. What we need is a body bag."

"Where are Clint and Natasha when you need them?" Bruce quipped dryly.

"In Cincinnati and on the Bartons' plaid couch where I left her, respectively."

Bruce snorted. "I assume we're not contacting the police?"

"I don't want anyone else tromping through here. I think S.H.I.E.L.D. would be more appropriate anyway. Doesn't Tony have a cryo-chamber somewhere? Or maybe an incinerator would be more appropriate?"

"Please, stop it!" Bruce suddenly felt quite irritated. "She wasn't a friend or even an ally, but she deserves some basic respect . . . some consideration."

"Sorry," Adam said contritely. The dark humor helped him deal with death, but he understood he'd crossed a line. "You're right. I just don't want her to cause more problems dead than alive."

"She was Natasha's rival. Yelena Belova deserves more respect in death than she had in life. I'm just afraid that A.I.M. will do something more to her body, and I'm just as concerned that S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't going to be much more ethical when it comes to taking her apart and seeing what makes her tick." Regarding that, Bruce could speak from experience since he'd consulted for the latter after Belova's first "death."

"Point taken, but I really don't want her resting place to be here. This is not going to be the Genesis Planet for _The Search for Yelena_. I want every bit of her gone from here, and the sooner it happens, the happier I'll be."

Bruce agreed, "Right. That's fair. Go ahead and give the ice a try then."

Adam thought through how he could displace the heat from the water around Belova's body and then applied his will. It was a little like a heat pump in reverse, but once the process got rolling, Adam sealed her in a cocoon of ice about ten inches thick. When he was certain she was safely sealed, he guided the makeshift container to the surface and into the shallows. He tried to work the binding spell over it, but it fizzled in a very unspectacular puff of gray smoke and scattered sigils. Yah, they'd be doing the rest of this the old-fashioned way. Bruce kept quiet, but Adam noted it was a rather smug silence. "Quit judging me. I'm not the one who has to do something perfect the first time."

"Some of us _have_ to be perfect," Bruce snapped back more sharply than he'd intended.

"I don't. You don't have to be either, Bruce. Please just shut up and let that sink in."

"I have to . . . I need . . . I can't . . . I . . . I'm not Dad."

"No fucking shit."

Bruce was finally silent for several minutes. "I'm sorry," he finally offered. Adam didn't say anything, but the level of tension between them dropped noticeably.

They turned their attention back to the problem at hand. The dark puddle forming on the water's surface held together oddly—sort of like floating liquid mercury if it were inky black and absorbed rather than reflected light. Leaving the biohazard there in the lake bothered Adam. He looked around and spotted a familiar child-sized plastic bucket. Adam remembered the plaything and the good memories associated with it, but he'd rather have the last traces of the assassin removed than get sentimental about a summer toy. It was no bigger than a neon-tinted shot glass in his green hand. He used his innate control over the water's surface tension to corral the odd substance and collect it in the plastic receptacle. His brother had remained very quiet while Adam worked, but now Bruce chuckled.

"Okay, spit it out, Smart Ass," Adam prompted good naturedly.

"After how I just scolded you, this is awful to say. At first, I was thinking of the black oil alien off _The X-Files_. Remember that?"

"Yah, Purity or something like that. Yuck! That show gave me the creeps. Period."

"Now, I'm thinking it looks like you have a bucket full of Constable Odo, but you probably don't remember _Deep Space Nine_."

"Mondays at 9:00pm," Adam deadpanned. He would have rolled his eyes if they weren't sharing headspace. Bruce had literally had control over the clicker their whole lives. "How could I forget you crushing on Nana Visitor."

"No, Terry Farrell."

" _Noooo_ , you liked the good girl, but the Bajoran rebel was the one you had the hots for. She's the one who tripped your trigger. The less said about that, the better."

"Fine. Anyway, bucket of Odo."

"Yah, let's hope it's not a bucket of Belova." He was glad his brother was sounding better. Maybe they were through this. "Are you going to be okay, Bru?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Do you think you can tell me what happened now?" Adam was half dreading the answer, but he needed the full story out in the open between them. He didn't want to come back for answers later that would trigger Bruce again.

Bruce paused, "I found her floating like that when I dove down. I didn't touch her again. I mean, I punched her in the armor chest plate, and she hit the water and sank. You saw that. I just watched her till you got here. She looked so at peace. Why did she have to . . . to use me like that?"

"Bru, Natasha could tell you the woman had issues. This was a suicide, plain and simple. How else was she going to die?" He didn't know Belova's complete story, but Adam knew she was enhanced and dangerous on top of unstable. She'd attacked Natasha again and again over the years. If he'd had the opportunity, Adam would have taken her out on sight and not felt one bit guilty. "I know this sounds harsh, but in more ways than one, the lady was a toxic mess waiting to take down as many people as she could. You've done the world a favor, Bru."

"Then why does it feel so . . . so wrong. I wanted to help her."

"She didn't want help to stay among the living. She wanted help dying, and she goaded and tricked you into giving it. That is the kind of person she was. You cannot redeem people who don't want it."

"Adam, intellectually, I know you're right, but I'm going to need some time. If you don't require me to be big and green, I'm going to change back. Please come get me. I really need to see Nat."

"All right. Keep an eye on the bucket."

Bruce gave him a mental nod and set the plastic pail down firmly and grounded it in the sand and gravel on the shore, so it wouldn't tip over. "Thank you for not giving up on me, Adam." There on the beach, Bruce knelt down on his knees and transitioned back to his normal form to wait for Adam's return. He was still so much inside his own thoughts that he barely noted how much easier the transition was until he'd already gotten through it. What a mixed bag of blessings and curses this had turned out to be. He looked at his normal human hands and then over at the frozen casket. Of all people, he understood how she might have felt, how tired she probably was. He wanted to believe he'd eased her pain and not just murdered or committed "manslaughter." Bruce stood up and slowly walked over to the ice-enclosed body.

The ice was almost glass clear where the surface was smooth. She made a strange parody of a sleeping princess in her tactical gear instead of a fluffy ball gown. Bruce remembered most of what the priest had said at their mother's funeral. The loop of it was seared into his eight-year-old mind and the autism compelled him to play the script through from the beginning to the end once he started:

Most merciful God, whose wisdom is beyond our  
understanding: Deal graciously with those who are in pain.  
For our sister, Rebecca, let us pray to our Lord Jesus  
Christ who said, "I am Resurrection and I am Life."  
Lord, you consoled Martha and Mary in their distress; draw  
near to those who mourn and dry the tears of those who weep.  
You wept at the grave of Lazarus, your friend; comfort us in our sorrow.  
You raised the dead to life; give to our sister eternal life.  
You promised paradise to the thief who repented; bring our sister to the joys of heaven.

Bruce couldn't bring himself to say any sort of prayer aloud. He doubted Yelena Belova was the religious sort, yet he could just be stereotyping her. Despite his own doubts, he felt the gravity of the situation acutely as he stared at the icy coffin. Funerals were for the living, not the deceased. Who was going to weep for Yelena? He reached out and touched the cold, hard surface of the ice. If he were a good person like Adam claimed, he'd be able to forgive her, but his anger and fears were too achingly fresh at the moment. "I'm sorry, Yelena. I'm even sorry that I'm not sorry. I should be, but I'm not there yet. You just reopened a very deep wound I thought was healed. I'm not going to be able to manage forgiveness today. I don't wish you ill. That's the best I can offer for now."

Bruce fought off the urge to curl himself up into a ball and hide. Everything was getting too bright and too loud again. His skin was itching where it was healing down his spine and shoulder. He knew he had to get past the sensory overload, but more importantly, he had to manage his emotions or they'd eat him alive. He needed Natasha's help for that. What he had done was violent, but he'd done it to protect the ones he loved. He'd thought it was for revenge because Belova convinced him it was. That's what she'd wanted. It might not have even been personal for her. He kind of doubted that, but it was possible. "Rest in peace, Ms. Belova. I'll try to make sure you stay that way."

Adam startled awake in the back seat of the Caddy. "Oh, shit. I need to get Bruce. What's going on now?"

Pepper handed him a bottle of chilled water as he sat up on the comfortable leather seat opposite her and Tony minus their metal suits. "Cool your jets a moment, Buddy," Tony said. "Yes or no, are we going to need a bodybag or some serious restraints?"

Adam took a long drink of water before answering. "As far as I could tell, a bodybag would be appropriate. We have her in ice because she's leaking some sort of blackish biohazard. I really need to get back to Bruce. Has S.H.I.E.L.D. made it down here from the upper gate?"

"Now that you're back, that's what we're waiting for. Right now, there's a real mess up at the gate, but it's being sorted out. The electricity is back and the systems are mostly rebooted," Tony explained.

"That sounds like a big improvement. Do you have a crash bag here for Bruce?" Adam asked.

"It's in the trunk," Happy informed him from the front seat, and Pepper handed Adam Bruce's jacket.

"Thanks. Anyone coming with me?" Adam asked as he stretched. He wasn't going to ask for it, but he wanted the company.

Pepper and Tony looked at each other. "You're not supposed to be here," she pointed out.

"I'll come with you to get the body then," Tony said.

"What do you plan to do with her? Bruce doesn't want to see her dissected or experimented on," Adam noted. "I don't want that either, and I really didn't like her."

Tony snorted then looked troubled as he considered the problem. "There will probably have to be an autopsy. S.H.I.E.L.D. would be better than local authorities."

"She is considered an international criminal," Pepper noted. "S.H.I.E.L.D. should have jurisdiction."

"Agreed. Can we arrange to drop her and the A.I.M. operatives off to them or should we just bring them back here?" Adam asked.

"Can you dump them on the deck of a Helicarrier?" Happy asked and Tony snickered.

Pepper almost rolled her eyes, "Don't do that, Adam. Can you bring them back here subdued?"

"Would unconscious be okay?"

"As long as we have enough time to put zip strips on them," Happy surmised, "that would work."

"Sure. Will S.H.I.E.L.D. need the vehicles, too?" Adam asked.

Tony stroked his beard and then nodded. "Save a couple of intact ones for your brother and me to take a look at later, okay? Nick can play with the rest."

"All right. I'll be back with the A.I.M. flunkies and Belova once I have Bruce settled. Body bag?"

"In the lab. Can you two handle things here with Nick?" Both Pepper and Hap shot Tony a murderous glower. "Okay, just thought I ought to ask to be polite."

"Go, we'll deal with Nick and the rest of it," Pepper told him.

Adam quickly jumped out of the car and opened a portal to the lab. "Okay, let's go add some new lines to my résumé."

"Along with minion napper? What did you have in mind, pallbearer? Magic hearse service?" Tony proposed.

"Body retrieval specialist," Adam decided with a nod.

"Don't even consider bodyguard or chauffeur," Happy barked after them.

Bruce had willingly kept vigil beside Belova's body while he waited for Adam to come back, but he was admittedly relieved when the green sparks appeared just a few strides down the beach and Tony and Adam stepped through. Both were carrying baggage.

Tony handed Bruce his jacket and a duffle bag with his clothing, toiletries, and shoes. The engineer thought his friend looked like he'd been through the wringer again. Bruce usually looked pretty trashed after a Code Green, but this was worse. "How are you doing?"

"I'm still moving, which is more than I can say for others." He nodded his head in the direction of the frozen slab of ice.

"We can work with that," Tony responded. Adam nodded his agreement.

Bruce gave the other men an encouraging smile, "So, what's the plan?"

Tony looked at Adam before he spoke. "We brought some biohazard disposal gear. If you have no objections, we'll get Ms. Belova's body and other remains bagged up and turned over to S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Do you know what they plan to do with her?" Bruce asked.

Tony set down the remaining duffle he'd brought with him. "I only spoke to Nick briefly, but they've agreed to keep the examination minimally invasive and to send the body to a secure site for observation and monitoring rather than disposal."

"Hmph, probably the Fridge or another similar facility," Bruce surmised. "That's where Blonsky is supposedly kept."

Tony grinned, "Good company, I guess."

"I'll drop you off with Natasha at the Bartons' and come back after we've turned over Belova and the A.I.M. minions. Okay?" Adam asked.

Bruce nodded as he pulled on his leather jacket over his bare shoulders. "Yah, sounds good. Thank you both for doing this."

"No problem. Are you going to be able to manage the Keynote address this evening?" Tony asked.

Bruce rubbed the back of his head, "Sure. That's what? Six? Seven hours?"

"Six hours till we should head back to Cincinnati and eight till the speech," Tony answered.

"Put your shoes on, and let's get you to the farm," Adam said as he set down a bundle of biohazard-containment materials.

Bruce nodded and slipped into the loafers they'd brought him without bothering to search the bag for socks. Adam opened the portal a little closer to the Bartons' house than earlier and closed it quickly behind them as the brothers stepped through. Lila and Cooper met them at the door, but this time they didn't shout.

"Auntie Nat is upstairs asleep, so we have to keep the racket down," Cooper explained as he held the door open, so they could step inside.

Lila made a motion to latch onto Bruce's waist as soon as they were in the living room, but he shook his head. "Careful, sweetie, I've had a swim in a lake, so I'm pretty gross. You don't want to get what I've been in on you."

Adam gave him a side-eyed glance and a perturbed scowl, "It was a pretty clean lake till some people decided to take an unscheduled swim in it after rolling around in a garage with tanks and concrete debris everywhere."

Bruce patted Lila's shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Adam, "If someone hadn't opened a random portal . . ."

"Did you open a portal like you did in the driveway?" Lila asked Adam.

He gave her a rather pleased smile. "Yes, I did. I opened and closed several, and I'm going to have to open and close several more of them before the day is over," he told the curious child. Lila and Cooper looked impressed. Part of him longed to stay and reconnect, but the timing absolutely sucked. "Unfortunately, I need to go clean up some of the mess now. If it's okay, I'll go help Tony with the tidying up."

"Go ahead, we'll be fine here, Adam," his brother assured him.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, but it will be at least an hour and a half." Bruce nodded and Adam left them. Both Lila and Cooper went to the window and watched him open the portal and quickly disappear through the ring of green sparks that closed behind him. Bruce marveled at how easily his brother was managing the magic, despite the fatigue he had to be feeling.

"I told you," Lila whispered to Cooper. "It's green because he's the Hulk."

"Uncle Bruce," Cooper said turning to him, "is your brother the Hulk?"

Bruce smiled and nodded his head, "Yes, when he wants to be, but it's a little more complicated than that. I wish . . ."

"Oh, good! You've made it," Laura said as she entered the living room from the direction of the laundry room. "I thought I heard you and your _brother_. Is everything _okay_ now?" She was clearly talking on two levels.

"It's mostly under control," Bruce said. "I'll tell you later." He looked at the children as he said that, and Laura nodded. "How's Natasha?" he asked.

"She had a pretty serious headache for a bit, but otherwise she seems fine. I had to threaten her to get her to lay down and rest, but she's been asleep. I checked on her a half hour ago to make sure she was okay."

"May I?" Bruce asked looking toward the stairs.

"She's upstairs in the front bedroom. Go on up."

"Thanks," Bruce told Laura with a fleeting smile before he climbed up the steps with his baggage and quietly pushed the door to the bedroom open. Natasha lay on her side facing away from the door. He watched and listened to her breathing for a moment. The familiar sound helped him finally unclench a bit. He carefully kicked his shoes off and slipped into the bathroom. He'd been very tempted to slip into bed and just hold her, but first he wanted to clean up and get the smell off him. Tony had put in a bottle of their detox solution from the lab, which made Bruce chuckle. They'd developed it together, but Tony kept tinkering with it. He hung up his jacket and then disengaged and stripped out of his TechUWear pants. What a sight he must have been as Hulk and as himself in that outfit. The jacket would probably be okay with some airing out. He rolled the tech pants up and put them in a sealable bag from the duffle and stuffed it back inside to deal with later. Thank God, they'd disabled the communications function earlier. Now, it seemed like it was days ago.

Bruce was pretty sure there was nothing too dangerous contaminating him or he wouldn't have come to the farm, but he was still glad to get in the shower. He, Clint, and Allen, Laura's somewhat helpful brother, put the new water heater in before Christmas, so using it was doubly satisfying. The pressure of the water on his skin always made him feel better. Bruce let it hit him in face for a moment before tackling the scrubbing. He'd barely gotten the solution uncapped when he felt the air pressure and temperature in the bathroom shift as the door slowly opened and closed.

"You were supposed to stay asleep for five more minutes," Bruce told her.

"No, this time I'm going to join you," Natasha corrected him, and she pulled the floral-patterned shower curtain back at the far end of the tub, so she could step in behind him. The redhead was already sans clothing, and his breath caught, first because seeing her pale shapeliness with the pink buds of her nipples hardened by the cool air always did that to him, but second because he noted some bruising on her shoulder and hip. Bruce held Natasha's hand to steady her and pulled her near once her footing was sure. Despite the bruises, he could feel some of his anxieties filtering away just being close to her. She took his right hand and with her thumb she rubbed the webbing where Belova had removed the chunk of flesh. "I can still feel it, but it's almost healed." She looked up into his tired face, "Are you okay?"

Bruce shrugged, "It'll heal, too." He didn't want to get into an involved discussion if they could put it off, but the look on her face said that wouldn't fly with her. "How about you?" he half deflected as he lightly traced around the bruise on her shoulder with his finger tips and then gently touched her lower abdomen. He could feel the chemistry of his blood changing as his concern and desire for her flared.

Natasha placed her hand over his and held it against her stomach. "I'm only a little the worse for wear, thanks to you and Adam. The little ones are fine, too. You, however, look like shit."

He snorted, "Thank you for that honest assessment." Part of him still felt like shit, but maybe he'd bottomed out and could finally come out of this stupid funk. He really owed his brother an apology.

Natasha let his hand go and carded the wet hair back from his forehead as the shower spray hit his back. "I've lived with you long enough to know when you've been put through something." He shrugged, but didn't offer an explanation. She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. That coaxed a smile out of him. Well, she'd get him to come around soon enough. "Hand me the soap please. I can still smell that sickly, sweet odor."

"Ode de Yelena? I think we both got a good dose, and it does stink. Here, try this. Tony threw it into the duffle. It's something we made to use in the lab." Bruce handed her the bottle of rather gooey detox solution he'd set down. Clint must have just added extra water softener pellets to the system because the solution foamed ridiculously in her hands when the water hit it. Bruce laughed, and she rubbed it into his stomach and chest hair vigorously, which resulted in an even better laugh and a little squirming. She kissed him lightly on the chin, and he kissed her on the forehead. Natasha turned him around to get his back and rubbed some over his arms and legs, giving his ass a playful two-handed squeeze. She quickly assessed that he was wound tight and trying not to let her see it. Silly, silly man!

There was still lather when she rubbed her hands over her own arms. "My God, what's in this?" she asked, wiping it on her thighs and shaking some off her hands.

Bruce took a handful of his excess suds and rubbed them down her back, lingering over a few old scars along her ribs. "That's a good question." He started to reach for the bottle she'd set down on the shelf behind her at the rear of the tub to examine it, but Natasha took the opportunity to turn toward him and grasp his jaw with her right hand and pull him into a kiss. The move caught him a little off guard, but he didn't resist her. Far from it, he gladly met her lips and slipped his left arm around her back. She stepped in closer and wrapped her slick fingers around his cock. Bruce gasped deeper than he'd meant, but she didn't let him out of the kiss for several very enjoyable seconds as she explored his mouth and other pliable parts. "Oh, so we are running with this?" he asked breathlessly when she released him.

"Yes. That's the plan. If you have any objections, you better say so now." She'd already managed with a few skillful strokes to get him mostly stiff.

"None! None at all!" Bruce assured her and reached around and down with both his hands to cup her ass, shifting to angle his hips into her hand better as she continued her much appreciated ministrations. She'd moved her fingers closer to the tip as his shaft continued to swell. "Oh, yes," he whispered. Now, she rubbed the pad of her thumb across the head, and Bruce moaned with desire. "How far?" he asked, thinking about where they were and who was home and the chances of the two of them winding up in a heap on the floor tangled up in the shower curtain.

Natasha tilted her face up to his and playfully bit his chin. "Up to the point of property damage."

Bruce raised an eyebrow and chuckled, "I'll try not to take that too literally."

"Keep the volume down and get the job done before we run out of hot water. Feeling up to the challenge?" Natasha asked. Bruce just grinned in response. Thank their lucky stars Clint had replaced the hot water heater with the biggest capacity the store had because Bruce wanted this to last a while!

They kissed again as she jacked him to fullness and the water soaked them both. He ran his hands over his front to pick up foam then placed his hands on her breasts and applied pressure as he pressed and rotated his palms on her nipples—two could play at this arousal game.

"This stuff makes a pretty good lube," she breathed between lip locks, arching her back into his firm caresses. "Oh, keep that up, Bruce."

"I think Tony put extra kelp and aloe extract in this batch. Chemistry isn't his forte, but occasionally he stumbles onto something."

"Jealous?" she teased.

"No, just really thankful he hasn't realized all its potential uses yet."

Natasha smirked, "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes . . . Well . . . maybe. There wasn't a zucchini on the label."

"Always a good sign," she returned with a throaty laugh before she wrapped her arms around his neck and grinned. He noticed the water droplets collecting in her soft auburn curls and weighing them down as the spray bounced off his back and shoulder and settled on her. A saturated lock clung to her temple, so he pushed it back with his forefinger and let his thumb linger for a moment on her cheekbone. Natasha raised an inviting eyebrow: always a good sign in his book.

Bruce easily anticipated her next move and helped position her as she sprang up and wrapped her legs around his torso. He was also very thankful Laura or Clint had put the grip strips in the bottom of the tub because there wasn't much to hold onto and the tiled wall was the only thing to brace against if he got off balance. Bruce avoided the curtain for obvious reasons. His forearms were under her glutes and her breasts were . . . well, nice and conveniently positioned. She really knew how to distract him. To be truthful, that's exactly what he needed, and it touched him deeply that she was doing this with him. She'd insist it was for both of them, but Bruce knew he was the one in need more often than not. His brain ticked off the chemical reactions she was setting off.

"Hey, get out of your head and kiss me," Natasha demanded when he seemed to be drifting away a bit.

"Yes, ma'am," Bruce said in his best Steve voice, and he quickly kissed her left breast before he met her lips.

Even if she hadn't been there to see it, Natasha could tell by his breathing and the feel of his skin that he'd been Hulked out for a while that morning. There was always a little tackiness from the way his skin stretched and contracted. Also, his bigger body had a sizable lung capacity, so he tended to take in more of everything in the air when Hulk breathed. Thus, it took a few hours to get his regular-sized lungs sorted out, especially when there was particulate matter. Along with a tinge of "Ode de Belova" on his breath was a distinctly gritty hint of concrete dust, but the longer and deeper they kissed, the more he tasted and smelled like his familiar caramel and musk-infused self. Natasha ran her hands through Bruce's soaked hair, letting her fingernails dig into his scalp a bit. Her left hand traveled down the back of his neck until she detected a fresh new scar under the surface that ran downward further than her fingers could casually touch. There was also a thickened patch on his left shoulder. She wanted to examine these further, but that could wait. She'd ask later once he was ready to talk more.

Bruce detected her hesitation and knew what she'd found. They rather liked mapping each other's skins. He pulled back a bit. "The scarring along my spine is from Belova's weapon, the thing that looked like a blue lightsaber. The spot on my shoulder is from the side of the portal. I can tell they're still healing because they itch like crazy, especially the cut. Something about the saber cauterizing the wound I imagine."

"On the one hand, I am amazed you can remember what happened so well from this code green. On the other, I'm sorry you ended up fighting my battles with Belova. Damn, I am going to retire her ass or so help me . . . !" Natasha almost growled as her temper flared. She could feel Bruce instantly tense back up.

"I . . . I don't think you'll have to worry about that anymore," his normally warm voice had bled out to a numb monotone.

Natasha leaned back so she could look into his eyes, "You caught her?" For some reason, she'd been sure Belova would have escaped. The blonde Widow had done it so many times before that Natasha had assumed she'd gotten away again. It took her a moment to begin to process it all.

Bruce glanced at her, but then he looked to the side uncomfortably. "You could say that."

"You mean . . . we actually have her in custody?" Bruce looked at Natasha with distress showing in his eyes. "No?" she queried.

He cleared his throat and swallowed. "Tony and Adam are turning her over to Nick about now. We're not completely sure if she's beyond resurrecting like she did the time before."

"Okay. Do you want to talk about this?"

"I'm still trying to process it. I just drove Adam crazy for a half hour going over parts of what happened. He finally talked me back off the ledge. Uh . . . sorry, that's a really horrible analogy." He looked at her guiltily. Sometimes he felt really stupid, always stumbling over old sore spots. "Please, would you just kiss me and keep me here in the present with you, Nat. I'm having trouble letting the experience go. The dam feels broken. I'm drowning and I'm stuck, but I think it would help if you . . ."

He didn't need to ask twice. Natasha placed both hands on the sides of his face and kissed him hard on the mouth. She knew Bruce must be falling into a mental loop, a memory gyre that sucked him away into dark places with narratives that spiraled back on themselves like a Möbius band. It was a cruel intersection of his autism with his depression working against him. It was a pattern Natasha now knew all too well. She could feel his anxiety heating up like an overcharged battery as her lips slid over his. She sucked and then bit his lower lip aggressively before moving to his left ear, "I'm here. I will not let you go! Keep your attention on me. I'm not leaving you till you feel safe," she assured him. "We both know what will fix this, Lover. I promise we'll find your balance."

Bruce kissed her back desperately, trying to focus his thoughts completely on her and what they were doing. Just once, he wanted his condition to work in his favor. "Yes," he whispered hoarsely. "I want to be here in this moment with you, Nat. I want the rest to go away. Just you and me, here and now."

"I need you. I want you to make love to me, Bruce." Natasha dug in her fingertips and then her nails into his shoulders. She was determined he was going to stay grounded and not drift away.

"Yes!" Bruce hissed. "That I can do," he replied with determination and turned them so his back was to the corner of the two solid walls. In that spot, the water wasn't hitting them directly in the face, and there were safe handholds for her to grab if she needed. Most of the detox solution had washed away, or he wouldn't have been able to get a grip on her. Bruce broadened his stance and relaxed his hold on her legs, slipping his hands to under her hips to support her shapely ass, so she could brace her shins against his thighs and lower herself onto his thickened shaft. His mind might have wavered off course, but his body had certainly remained on track, craving that contact and release. He had to admit, it was a bit ironic that the one place he might have his shit together was the bedroom.

Natasha bit her lower lip, wanting to avoid everyone downstairs hearing what they were doing as they ground into each other. Laura would understand, but still . . . "Stay with me! Stay with me!" she chanted to him as their bodies worked together with Bruce supporting and lifting her hips and controlling the speed as she slid up and down on his cock. Bruce groaned with pleasure low in his throat. They'd used this position before, but not here in the Bartons' guest suite. It was exciting and physically challenging as they balanced each other and undulated together, hips gyrating and abs rubbing, still slick with the last traces of the solution. He wanted to touch her clit, but all he could do was grind into her front to front, pulling her tight against him. "Oh, yes! That's the spot!" she assured him.

Feeling more at ease now, Bruce tilted his head back slightly and watched her through half closed eyes, narrowing his focus to her and what they were physically experiencing. Natasha was so luminous, angelic, earthy, and strong all at the same time. The rhythmic slap of their limbs together and the spray of the water was almost hypnotic. His shoulders, arms, and legs flexed and pumped and held her, and she moved with him as his muscles rippled beneath her and he thrust deep into her. Finding a familiar groove, they picked up the pace. It was like a dance in which neither partner moved their feet, but the motion of their hips and torsos never stopped until both their bodies began to quickened—muscles clenching and tightening as his cock hit the perfect angle and found that spot deep inside her over the pubic bone. Sweet, sweet friction pulled them over the edge.

"Yes! That's it, Lover!" the redhead gasped. Her fingers dug into his biceps, and her back arched, pale muscular legs squeezing his hips as she rode him.

"Yes!" He responded by tightening his grip on that luscious curve of her hip and thigh.

Climax came on them both, and Natasha leaned forward into his chest. She covered Bruce's mouth with her right hand before he could cry out more loudly, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, panting into his ear. "I love you. I'm here for you."

"Oh, Nat," Bruce whimpered as her grip over his mouth eased up. The brief euphoria of release was followed by the quiet, centered feeling when everything made sense to him, the world came into balance, and then that faded after a few moments into something quieter. It was still blissful to feel her contracting around him, pulling the last of his seed into her. His system flooded with endorphins and especially serotonin. Suddenly, everything felt right and balanced, and Bruce knew he'd be okay. Life was good. They were together. They were made to do this together. They deserved some happiness.

When he and Natasha had been sharing a bed for about a month, Bruce had asked his therapist, Cecily Brookfield, if he was becoming obsessed with her . . . if what he was doing was wrong. They'd made love every day they'd been together, more than once most days. He'd never felt better, been happier in his life, and it absolutely terrified him. Was he using her like a drug? Was the relationship healthy for both of them?

Cecily had taken off her glasses and set down her notes before she gave him a bemused smile, "There is no consensus that 'hypersexuality' is a primary disorder, Bruce. One person's lack of hang ups can help with another's path to self-regulation. There's nothing wrong with a healthy sex life." He looked at her with his puzzled owlish stare behind his glasses because he couldn't quite take in what she'd said. She gave another go at an explanation as he puzzled things out. "Are you able to concentrate on other things such as work when you need to?" He'd nodded.

"I don't think I've been this productive before, not even before the accident."

"You said you're keeping to a regular schedule, eating well, sleeping as much as you feel the need. Are you physically harming each other?"

"No, I'd never willingly hurt her," he'd asserted, feeling rather alarmed she'd ask him that. "I'd rather die first. We have a safe word, so we don't get too rough."

To her credit, Dr. Brookfield didn't roll her eyes at that. "Sorry, I wasn't being clear. Let me rephrase that. You're both physically enhanced. Are you having intercourse frequently enough for the 'wear and tear' to become a problem?"

He'd stared at the carpet a moment before answering. "I don't think so. We're both pretty durable and flex . . . uh, well . . . To be accurate, if we have limits, we've not found them . . . yet, anyway." Bruce had felt so awkward he'd ended up blushing about as red as his complexion could get. He'd been raised with the idea that bragging was bad manners. Only his father had ever bragged, and it certainly hadn't been about sexual prowess.

"Bruce, I doubt your behavior is pathological. If it's helping you find a better mental balance, probably involving some combination of serotonin and endorphins, then don't give it another thought. If I could prescribe medications for you, I'd start with antidepressants. If sex is helping you elevate your mood naturally, please, by all means, you have my permission to self-medicate as often as the two of you are comfortable with it."

"But, aren't I using her?"

Cecily gave him that beatific, non-judgmental smile of hers, "Perhaps I'm not the one you should be asking this."

"Hey, Big Guy, don't wander too far away," Natasha warned with a satisfied purr to her voice. She was still a bit flushed and so was he. She brushed the wet hair back from his forehead and looked into his brown eyes. His irises were dilated wide as she studied his face, looking for hints as to his mental state. She ran a toe teasingly down the back of his thigh.

"I'm here, Natasha. I'm sorry things have gotten so messy, but I won't wander far without you. I promise I won't leave you and our family." He set her down on her feet, and once they'd rinsed off, Natasha shut off the water. He kissed her cheek and kept staring into her eyes, only in part so she could get an accurate read on him. Even without taking an app reading, he knew the Gamma was low, and now he could breathe and think without being dragged downward. Sex had a lot of benefits. Not having to deal with a pharmacy was one of them. "I owe you an apology," he told her.

"Why? What did you do?" she asked incredulously as she pulled back the curtain and handed him a towel.

"I should have given you the _coup de gras_ ," he explained.

Natasha shook her head and laughed. "I really don't mind, Sweetheart. In fact, it was kind of, well, _sexy_ to see you go all Papa Bear when we needed you," she said and gave his bicep a playfully admiring squeeze, but she meant it. He'd never looked more confident and sure of what he was doing, even when he'd stepped up and taken out the space behemoth with one punch in the Battle of New York. Adam had taken over, but it was purely Bruce's decision to step up and deliver.

Bruce threw his head back and genuinely laughed. "That was one of the dumbest moves I've ever made in my life. I stepped right in front of two trained experts with their guns drawn, and I blocked your target."

"When you had to, you acted. Your instincts were perfect. I'm proud of you, Bruce. No apology needed." She grabbed the towel that was now wrapped around his hips and pulled him closer. Natasha rubbed her forehead against Bruce's when he bent his head down to her. He didn't have the heart to tell her, he planned to find a way never to have to be Hulk again.

 ** **End Notes:**** Wow, parts of this were painful to write, especially after seeing Ragnarok. I don't like putting characters through the wringer, especially Bruce, but otherwise there wouldn't be a story to tell. Yes, the research for this chapter was pretty interesting and far-ranging. I've never been in therapy, so I hope that wasn't too far off the mark.

Hope everyone has been to see _Thor: Ragnarok_ , which has some wonderful Bruce x Natasha moments! Check out my Tumblr post if you want my thoughts: post/167609894858/yay-so-youve-now-seen-thor3-whats-your-thought

Please leave a review or ask a question. It really does make my day!

Next up, I've not forgotten about Nix. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving if you're in the US!


	64. Chapter 64

**Summary:** The story picks up on Nix with people we've heard about but not met before. Natasha gets Bruce to air some of his anxieties. Adam and Tony are busy cleaning up and playing detective. Beginning of the flashbacks that lead to the get-together at the Lake. Lots of feels and hot wings!

 **Notes:** Thank you to Autumn_Froste and Emilygracie for Beta duties. Any mistakes are mine. Yes, we earn our mature rating. Childhood trauma is mentioned. Sherlock Holmes and Die Hard references are made. Expect a flashback within a flashback.

 **Chapter 64: Broken, Blue, and Missing You**

This was definitely the most unnerving thing that had ever happened to Gordanna Na in her adult life, but she was doing her best not to let it show in front of General Rigelus Ariadne who was seated opposite her in the small ship's passenger compartment. Brown-haired, dark-eyed, tall, and soft-spoken she stood out in a crowd, not just because she was physically a bit unusual, but because most of her planet's society considered her "disabled". She still lived at home with her parents because the stigma of her condition had narrowed her options for education and employment. The fact that they lived in a sparsely populated agricultural region and she was an artist hadn't helped. Marriage might have been a way out of her parents' house—she was certainly mature enough to set up a partnered household, but it wasn't something she cared to consider. She'd rather live with her parents in peace and work out her own path to independence. Her projects were selling, but she wasn't using her full name or meeting clients face-to-face for consignments nor commissions. Most patrons seemed to just write it off as an artist being eccentric or quirky. She'd take that any day over the sad looks, rudeness, and condescension she sometimes encountered. Gordanna even preferred the occasional superstitious evil eye and fearful recoils over the well-meant saccharine.

Most Nixians were psychic to some degree. The ruling class were usually highly-trained and naturally gifted mind readers who could pick through an unschooled head like a database or a video library (Rigelus was one of these) while most other people could at least detect emotions and share basic ideas without regarding it as anything unusual. Generally, children on Nix were born mentally "open," broadcasting their thoughts and feelings with no clue how to focus and protect their minds from the psychic challenges and bombardment they would soon encounter in public spaces. If control and protective defense didn't come naturally in a few months, it meant yoking the child with an adult, usually a parent or older sibling, till the child matured enough to find the "on and off switch." If they remained "open" and unable to control the thoughts and emotions they broadcast for others to detect, it was considered a handicap.

There were devices to dampen "openness" to socially acceptable levels, but no amount of training could correct the opposite condition. A child whose mind could not be read or who could not communicate psychically was referred to as a "blank" when a mind was fused tight. Neither magic nor science had found an effective "cure" for the condition. To complicate the situation, Nix had a sad history of training blanks as assassins because they could blindside psychics and empaths as well. Though that had been over two hundred years in the past, blanks were still regarded with suspicion on one hand and patronizing contempt for their perceived weakness on the other. Gordanna Na was a blank.

The day after the invitation and the follow-up video call, the official ship had arrived with a much more auspicious chaperon than she or her mother and father had anticipated. General Rigelus had been very kind when he spoke to her parents, but the royal was rather noncommittal about why their handicapped daughter above all citizens was needed by Queen Nyxianna. Yes, Gordanna was educated and an unusually talented artist, but why was she needed in the capital? The polite conversation out loud between her mother and Rigelus had carried on for a good half hour over confections and drinks. Gorna could only guess about the mental one flying back and forth between the crown's surrogate and her protective parents. Still, they'd eventually let her go with Rigelus after he gave his word and a personal guarantee she would be respected and safe. Once she'd met with Queen Nyxianna, their daughter would be free to come back if that was her choice. Gordanna agreed and that was that. It would be her honor to serve her sovereign.

Feeling both excited and ready to panic or throw up, Gordanna had quickly finished packing her things-she'd had an inkling she would be leaving when the invitation came, so she was half done before the general had arrived. After loading her two small pieces of luggage, they'd settled into the plush seating. The small craft had a pilot and copilot, but they were stationed in the cockpit. That left the two of them alone in the privacy of the passenger compartment. The general watched her fuss with her new suit of clothing and portfolio valise, both purchased for the occasion. He seemed to be rather amused, but had the good manners to hide it behind his gloved hand as he stroked his scarred chin. His ash blonde hair was pulled back and braided down his back in the unfussy military fashion, but his dark blue suit was free from any indication, other than its cut, that he was a high-ranking official. What skin Gordanna could see was a weathered mahogany color—ruddier than most of the people she knew and much darker than her fair skin, but there were obvious laugh or frown lines around his blue gray eyes and mouth to give away something of his temperament and age. He and his twin Regalus Ariadne were known to be men with swift tempers and strong emotions, but he'd done nothing she could see yet to support that fiery reputation. Both were highly regarded as protectors of the people after the planet's recent conquest and struggle for liberation. Rigelus was known as the more politically adept of the two brothers and his sister's most trusted advisor.

Gordanna tried to sit still and appear composed, but the squeaky leather seat made it abundantly clear she wasn't so good at either. She'd never been a quiet sort if you ignored the blank part and being an introvert. Gordanna rubbed at the back of her neck, not used to the fresh haircut her mother had insisted she have at the last minute that morning. Neat or messy, her hair was still a nondescript brownish to almost blonde color that defied braids and fasteners till she gave up and took scissors to it at a young age. She'd shocked her whole family and half the town because very few Nixians of any age, complexion, or gender kept their hair too short to braid. Their society was known for it. Even without psychic hearing she could tell everyone thought "the mutilation" was just one more thing the little "broken one" had done, probably just for attention. Well, that was over twenty years ago, and she'd not been tempted to grow it long again. All the better to avoid getting it burned off when she worked with fire or hot metals while she was creating or experimenting in her modest studio at the back of her parents' property.

The young woman's gaze drifted back to the window on her right as the last bits of familiar scenery sped by and all of her familiar world was left behind. Why would a member of the royal household be sent to escort an artist, a lowly blank and psychic deaf mute to see Queen Nyxianna? It couldn't be good.

"It's alright to look out the windows," the warrior assured her as she craned her neck. "You've not been to the capital before, have you, Miss Na?"

"No, I've never traveled outside Pastoralis province, Your Grace. My parents didn't think it would be wise to let me go to university by myself." Rigelus nodded to encourage her to go on. He was quite curious about her since he couldn't detect anything about her in his normal way aside from what he observed or she offered. "I was qualified, but they sent my younger sister first because of my disability. I was supposed to join her, but it didn't work out. She's in her fifth year of studies now in administration." Gordanna could have added, "And never coming back home to Sunesstra short of a funeral."

"So, your file said you're an artist. Are you self-taught?" He was genuinely curious about this.

"Only in part. My grandfather and my mother had training as educators and practiced practical arts with their magic. I learned the basic levels from them since I was too much of a distraction in school after a few years. After that, I studied under Master Ira Heliosus until he died a season ago."

"I'm sorry to hear he's gone. My sympathies for your loss. As I recall, the critics dubbed him the 'Master of Firelight and Shadow.' I've seen his work with solid light holograms in the public gardens at the capital. It's quite amazing. Was that also his piece I saw in the town square?"

"He did the design. I executed the shaping of the stone, and we worked through the water and fire elements together. I created the audio, too."

"My compliments to you both. I've never seen anything quite like it. Ah, is your name shortened to 'Gorna' in your signature?"

"Yes, G-o-r. N-a. Gor Na. Thank you. Master Heliosus was a very gifted teacher as well as an artist." She looked at Rigelus quite pensively, but finally spoke. "If you'll pardon my being blunt, might you tell me why I've been summoned and escorted by someone as important as yourself? This whole experience is so out of the blue. I hope I've not done something wrong or offensive to anyone in the capital."

Rigelus chuckled, "No, there are no problems as far as I've been told. My sister wants to meet you, but she's not shared with me why. I'm fairly certain it will be something pleasant or I wouldn't have been sent. My brother and a dozen armed officers usually deliver the bad news without sending an invitation first. Tell me, did you apply for a position or a commission at some point?"

"No, I've not applied for anything since I was accepted into the university system six years ago. I've started the process of reapplying since it's been so long. Master Heliosus thought I should submit a portfolio and test into an advanced curriculum. I'm not sure how far he got or if he'd made any contacts for me before he died. I understand I needed a patron in the university system to vouch for me."

The general pursed his lips and nodded, "That sounds like a possibility. What are your chief mediums?"

"I conjure holograms, but I combine song with the spell casting energies as well. I want to see if there are applications beyond art.

"Really? Now, that is interesting. Like art and music as therapy?"

"No, something more physical than that. I use different combinations to delineate and tap into dimensions as I create. I've managed to do this with water, air, fire, and stone, but I barely understand how. I was hoping there would be other Masters who might help me quantify what I do if they could ignore my handicap."

 _Ah, there's the rub_ , he thought. Rigelus had been off world enough to encounter individuals with all types of psychic abilities, even silent ones like Gordonna Na. It had been odd at first to be totally in the dark about the thoughts and feelings an ally had, but he'd gotten used to it. It meant you had to be very clear and specific when you communicated physically and verbally. This human, the campanius or "bell ringer," a possible consort with whom his sister had found a connection, had almost the mirror opposite condition to being a "blank." 'Anna had explained that his mind was opened and undisciplined like most of his race. She said Earthers broadcast clearly enough, but they didn't attempt to listen. She was sure that he could be trained, but it was almost unheard of to manage such a thing with adults on Nix. However, teaching her consort would no doubt be easier than working with a blank pupil. He wished he could have met and discussed this issue with Heliosus. At least Rigelus was reasonably sure he had the right person now. 'Anna had charged him with finding out all he could about the young woman because she was going to do something important, but he had no idea what it was. He suspected it had something to do with the new consort and 'Anna's desire to forge ties to Earth. The planet was under the Thunderer's protection, but Rigelus agreed with her reasoning: what attracted Asgard's attention was likely worth Nix's time as well. It also didn't help that Asgard had become considerably less reliable of late. Even if Nix didn't openly assert its independence, they needed to be ready to stand on their own.

"I hope my sister plans to help you with that, but she hasn't informed me of any details, Miss Na. I think you are capable of doing great and important things. I'm here to make sure you are safe and comfortable on your journey to meet her."

"Thank you, Your Grace. I appreciate your candor." Gordanna settled back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap.

Rigelus was rather surprised she didn't keep grilling him. He hadn't tried to be intimidating, but he was left to guess since he couldn't rely on reading her thoughts or emotions. Since Miss Na was now ignoring him, Rigelus turned his attention to his handheld medium, so he wouldn't be rudely staring at her and making the young woman more uncomfortable. He did note her body language was relatively easy to read, probably an exaggeration on her part to clue others into her mood. Most people usually added a psychic component as another layer of communication, so the overall impression was that she was, well . . . very quiet and probably thinking he was a real jerk for not telling her what was going to happen. He wouldn't disagree with her if she was thinking that.

He found he had a one-word message from his sister the Queen who apparently wanted a status report: "Well?"

Rigelus smiled because he knew what she meant and answered 'Anna back. He reassured her he had the right person. "Yes, she signs her art as 'Gor. Na,' so I'm sure she is the correct person. What are your plans for her?" He waited almost ten seconds for a reply since the encryption slowed things down, even communication rooted in magic.

"I plan to appoint her to be a goodwill ambassador to Earth as part of a cultural exchange."

"She's awfully young and unschooled to be sending to meet the barbarians," he replied back with a little cheek, knowing it would cause her some consternation.

"Hold your tongue, Rige. This won't be something _official_. Midgard will make a good ally, and I'll judge if she'll make a passable diplomat. I have a healer and a builder-smith lined up, so she'll fit right into the mix with us."

He could guess whom she'd enlisted. "What do you mean by ' _us_ '?"

"You're going, too. I cleared your calendar."

How did he already know that? He sighed inwardly, "I love you, my dearest sister and my Queen, and I obey."

"Thank you, Rige. You will not regret it."

Rigelus snorted and put the device back in his pocket. Admittedly, he wanted to meet this Earther from Midgard. All he knew was the man was young and he housed an avatar form who'd bested Nixie—no mean feat—as well as possessing a great beast, so he was formidable in that regard, more so than almost all of his species. What worried Rigelus was that this Adame? Aiden? Whatever his name was, had never been off his home planet, and frankly, Midgard was a backwater, despite the attention it was getting now.

When those damnable bells rang, it had come out of the blue, a piece of mythology suddenly made real and consequential again. Of course, it was spun different ways by different parties, but 'Anna had stayed on top of the situation and parlayed it into reviving negotiations with their neighbors. She was very good at consolidating power and representing their people off world, but they both knew there were going to be domestic issues. They agreed the ruling structure needed to change, but as soon as she tried to step back from governing as a war queen and transitioning away from a strong monarchy to something more representative, allies and enemies alike were going to have "issues." _Huge issues_. Their brother Regalus was going to be a hard sell because one of his children stood to be her heir. _Oh, 'Anna!_ She never did anything the easy way. None of this was going to be easy. Well, that was a fight for another day, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

He glanced over at his traveling companion and saw Gordanna Na was rearranging the contents of her valise on the seat beside her. "Are those viewing cubes of your projects?" he asked, trying not to come off as overly demanding despite his honest curiosity.

Gordanna looked up slowly as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't. "Yes, Your Grace," she acknowledged, and offered him one to examine before he was bold enough to ask her. "Might I trouble you for some assistance?"

This coaxed a smile out of him. "Certainly, that's why I'm here."

"Would you adjust the volume on these? Heliosus was a little hard of hearing, so I'm afraid they might be psionically blasting as well."

"Only if you'll call me Rige or Rigelus and stop with the honorifics," he requested.

"Of course, Rige. You may call me Gordanna or Gordy or Gorna or just Na if you want."

"Okay, _Gorna_? Is that how you say it?"

"Yes, the accent is on the first syllable." She finally made steady eye contact with him and smiled.

Rigelus mirrored a pleasant smile back to her and activated the viewing cube on his palm. He winced as the audio and psionics blasted into life just after the hologram formed a miniature sculpture radiating a spray of water and colored light.

Gordanna laughed before biting her lower lip. "Sorry!"

Rigelus poked the cube to adjust the levels downward. "Deaf as a post, hum?"

"Almost." She held out the next one. "I think the reason Heliosus took me on was because he felt a bit broken himself. We helped each other make something greater than its parts."

The General smiled. "I can't dispute the merits of your collaborative efforts. It's remarkable." He looked over the miniature sculpture from her village's square once more before shutting it down and trading it for the new cube Gordanna offered him.

"Just twenty-two to go," she said brightly.

[break]

Natasha ran her fingers through her drying hair as she stood behind Bruce and watched him shave. He was having to make do with the disposable razor from the crash bag, but he was very efficient and thorough with it. At least he had left a cake of good shaving soap there at the Bartons' on a previous visit, so he could go through the ritual-like steps that seemed to help keep him calm. As he wiped away the leftover bits of lather with a washcloth, Bruce finally turned to her for inspection.

Natasha ran her hands down his cheeks and jaw to his chin. "Like a baby's behind, but maybe I should give it the lip test, hmm?"

"Please do," Bruce confirmed and tilted his head, so she could kiss his cheek. This led to more kissing until Natasha maneuvered them into the bedroom. They were both still in bath towels, so she slipped under the covers and pulled him in after her. "Don't tell me you're cold again," he murmured as their legs tangled.

"Maybe a little," she admitted. She nestled into his warm arms and pressed herself against the length of his body as they lay face to face. "How are you feeling now?"

"Centered, warm, thankful. I feel happy now that I'm with you. Thank you, Natasha." He continued to run his hands over her back and flanks, giving her light caresses before he settled his hand on her stomach. She bumped her forehead into his chest and he kissed the top of her head.

Natasha hated to break the peaceful bubble they were in, but she knew he was holding back something. Typically, he did that thinking he was protecting her, but it was almost always an issue that should be aired and discussed . . . if she could get it out of him. With Bruce, it was usually best to take it head on. "So, what's lingering on your mind?" Bruce gave her a look, and she knew he was considering trying to bluff her or put it off, but Natasha was having none of that today. "Hey, don't think of brushing this under some rug. You promised me a long time ago that you wouldn't shut me out of your thoughts, no matter how dark. Something has you stirred up inside, and I'm not going to let it fester till later."

Bruce exhaled and puffed out his cheeks, still not wanting to talk, but knowing she was onto him. _Busted_. He weighed his options. She was right: better just to have his concerns out there than bottled up. "This is going to come out sounding like a whiny teenager or a total emo regression."

"As long as it comes out, I don't care. This was your first time by yourself as the Big Guy." She could tell by the slight tightening of his jaw she was correct. "Tell me about it since I missed out on some of the second half of the show."

Bruce shook his head. "I'm not very good at it and I don't want to do it anymore."

She snorted with disbelief. "You could have fooled me. You remembered your training. I recognized your moves. I know the transformation had to have hurt and put you outside your comfort zone, but you didn't curl up into a ball."

"Honestly, I wanted to. I guess I thought Adam might still be there somewhere to give me a little guidance, but he wasn't part of the equation at all. I was really alone, like I was after the accident." Natasha leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and Bruce took a deep breath and went on. "The transition didn't hurt quite as much as it normally does. I was scared because it was so easy to be mad and feel comfortable acting on that anger. Before, Adam regulated that part. This time, I had to figure it out on my own. It didn't exactly go like I wanted."

"Okay, not fun, but you handled it. Is that what bothered you?"

"Not all of it. When Adam isn't there, I don't feel right in that skin. I don't want to hurt people, and it really bothers me to have that much power when I can't use it right." Bruce pulled back a few inches so he could see her face. "Nat, I seriously considered bringing the building down when you were hurt. I didn't want to live, not without you. It was all so raw, so broken."

"Hey, it's okay. I'm okay. The babies are fine. You didn't act on that destructive impulse." She stroked his face as he struggled to get past his emotions.

"But I didn't get you out of there first. I went after Belova. Some husband and father I'm going to be."

She put her hands on both sides of Bruce's face, wiping a tear away with her thumb. "Look at me. I would have done just what you did. You are part of a team for a reason. You don't have to do it all, Bruce."

He looked away from her. "I didn't choose the right thing."

"Yes, you did. You had to make a gut decision. Adam had your back. Tony and Pepper were there, too. You made the right call to go after her. Quit second guessing and beating yourself up. It wasn't like I was tied to a train track or going over the falls in a barrel."

"I thought she'd killed you."

"I'm okay. It's all right now. I had on Adam's coat and that protected me. You kept her busy, and Adam got me out of there while Tony and Pepper handled the tank things, right? Adam would have needed room for an extraction. Don't tell me you didn't keep Belova occupied while he made a portal." Natasha had been more than half out of it, but she thought she remembered that much.

Bruce shook his head and smiled at her a little sadly. "I kept her occupied all right. She seemed to be having a fun time playing with me like a picador would a bull. Adam said it was to egg me on, so I'd lose control and kill her. Like stepping in front of a big green bus."

"Or like what they call 'death by cop'," Natasha noted. "Well, Adam is right about that. Yelena liked toying with her opponents; in fact, she's always gotten her kicks from it. I've seen how she operates. You were too strong and too smart for her to have a fair fight with, so she got dirty and tried to mess with your head." She ran her fingers through his hair. By the way he looked at her, Natasha knew that's what had happened. "You were the right one to deal with her, Bruce. I bet you were able to adapt and resist her pheromones. Adam might not have done as well as you."

That led Bruce to think about how much more dangerous Adam would have been with his growing capacity for powerful magic much less fully Hulked and out of control like he'd been in Johannesburg. "Oh, shit," Bruce murmured. Then he imagined himself doing the same, destroying the foundations and bringing the tower down.

Too late, Natasha realized her mistake. She knew him well enough to recognize he was about to slide backward. "Stay with me, Bruce."

"I will. I'm here." He tried to shut down his negative train of thought by finding a new subject. Something. _Anything._ Finally, a new idea sparked and Bruce grasped at it. "Natasha, I feel like I'm drowning in this flood of what-ifs. I have to find a way to be rid of this constant anxiety. Physically, my condition is chronic because there is no cure for the Gamma, but now that I have it contained, I think I know how to stop it from fueling the transformation."

"What do you mean?"

"I think I have an idea for how to block the transformations."

"You've tried something like this before. How's it different?" She'd really hoped Bruce wouldn't drift back to this. He'd wasted so much time, energy, and resources on it in the past.

"The mass comes from someplace. If I could block the transfer of the mass, I think that would disrupt the process and cause the chain reaction during the transformation to stop. I think it could work!"

Natasha could hear a bit of manic excitement creeping into his voice. "All right. But, are you sure you want to do that? The reaction might not stop. It might just blow up or change and become worse instead."

"I'm tired of being afraid. I want to be free of it. I don't want to be Hulk. It's going to take time to figure it out, but I think these may be viable ideas."

"It's not something you'll be able to manage in a week or two, right? This would be closer to months or years."

"I don't know. I would hope months and not years."

"You can't predict it for certain though."

"No, I'm just giving an educated guess."

"Go ahead if it will make you feel better to pursue this, but I think you're really selling yourself short. You've not given yourself a chance to adjust to a huge change."

Bruce rolled away and lay on his back with Natasha half on top of him. "Adam said I was doing bad science by not giving the situation more time and accumulating more data. I get that."

"I think he has a point. What I would like you to consider is what might happen if you can't Hulk out when we need you."

"Adam is the Hulk. I'm a poor, broken substitute," Bruce said dismissively.

"You're a rookie. He's a veteran. Stop comparing yourself to him." Natasha stroked the now dried curls off his forehead and got close to his face. "Listen to me. That mindset is what made Yelena Belova's life miserable. You are the most brilliant person I know. Period. You don't have to be dazzlingly good at everything, not right out of the gate. Adam and Clint and Tony and Steve and I have gotten where we are through hours of practice and discipline. He won't admit it, but even Thor works out. We all have raw talent, but it takes work. Promise me you'll do everyone this favor: train with Adam like you did Logan last summer and fall."

Bruce was looking away from her, but he nodded. "If it will make you happy . . ."

Natasha put her forefinger on his lips and touched his chin, so he turned his head to her. Bruce looked at her rather sheepishly. "No, it's not a matter of what makes anyone happy. It's due diligence. There are going to be times when your brilliant, charming self can't do it all, and having the Big Guy in your back pocket will come in handy. You've worked so hard and finally got some real control. You said the pain was more manageable. Don't throw this gift away just because it was a curse to begin with. You're almost there. You can do a lot of good with it."

He hugged her and buried his face in the side of her neck. "I promise, I will not throw this away lightly or without trying to make it work. I just want to be a good husband and partner and a better father than I had."

"That's something you can only really learn by doing. All of it is, really. Are you ready to handle that last part?"

"Of course, as long as I'm with you. I am scared shitless, but I'd follow you anywhere."

"Now, there's the guy I love and adore." Natasha chuckled, but then she winced as a wave of nausea and then something else ran through her. "Ouch."

"What's the matter? . . . Uh . . . Did you feel that?" He'd felt something or someone pull at him almost like when Adam was in distress.

"Yah, it felt like a flutter or almost a lurch." She was really glad she was already laying down.

"Show me where you felt it."

Natasha rolled off him and onto her back. She touched low on her stomach. "I think it was one of the babies, but this is way too early for a kick."

Bruce lay his head lightly on her stomach, not quite sure what he was trying to sense. He closed his eyes and breathed her citrus, floral, and musk smell while underneath was the fresh green smell of rosemary, but the fruit-like buddleia was missing. Natasha flinched and moaned. Bruce looked up in alarm.

"It's okay. I think it settled back down." The queasiness was gone, but she still felt a bit dizzy.

"You're sure?" Bruce asked as he lay down beside her and straighten the quilt after he'd thrown the covers back over them.

"Yah, it just felt really weird. Maybe it was the last bit of Yelena's sendoff." She didn't believe that, but she really didn't want him worrying about it either. "Spoon with me, will you?" Natasha turned so her back was to Bruce. She didn't see him raise an eyebrow as he scooted closer and enfolded her in his arms. She snuggled close, resting her head on his right bicep. Usually, Nat was the "big spoon," but cuddling from either position had its attractions. He kissed the nape of her neck as she stroked his forearm then moved her hand down to his wrist and ran her thumb over his hourglass tattoo. After a few moments, Bruce shifted his hand down to her stomach and she laced her fingers with his.

Suddenly, there was a bubbling little hint of a sweet floral scent. "There she is!" he murmured, not sure why that was the first thing out of his mouth, yet knowing he was right.

Nat chuckled, "I felt her, too. We're all going to feel awfully silly if there are two boys now."

[break]

Adam shuddered and pinched the bridge of his nose. For a moment he thought it was the essence belonging to the woman whose body was laid out on the plastic in front of him, but the spirit was nothing like her essence—too pure and bright, maybe too young? Definitely not tarnished enough. He scanned and tracked it across his realm and got as far as his replica of the Barton Farm property before it was gone again. Poof! Nothing.

"Are you okay, Adam? You're looking kind of pale," Tony asked as he pulled on a fresh pair of protective gloves, his third in the last half hour.

"I'm good. Something just flitted through, but now it's gone." He didn't mention how unusual that was. He'd be checking his boarders as soon as he had the chance. Nothing had ever beaten his wards before, not even Raven who was much more powerful than its outer appearance. Right now, whatever it was seemed harmless, and Adam was a little too busy to let anything short of a hostile attack distract him from completing this little bon voyage. First, he'd been to The Null and removed all the unconscious St. Rita/A.I.M. people from their tankbots and zip-stripped them before sending them out into the garage for Pepper and Hap to hand over to S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd also kicked out several tons of tankbots with varying degrees of smashing. He'd held back two slightly different models with the least amount of damage for Bruce and Tony to examine later. Then he and Tony had come back to his realm to deal with Ms. Belova.

Adam had sublimed the ice off her, and then Tony had noticed something odd about her armor. Neither of them had wanted to touch the body, but Adam had finally dawned some forensic gloves and unfastened the vest and chest plate while Tony lifted it up with a gloved hand and a stick. They both jumped back when one of the electric-bladed weapons she had used on Bruce fell free and rolled out onto the plastic.

"Shit! How did that get there?" Tony asked, just short of hyperventilating.

Adam squatted down and flipped back the loose chest plate, so they could get a good look at the damage. "I doubt any chest-busting aliens were involved, but this is a mess." There was a wound above her left breast where the blade had stabbed across and downward through her heart and lungs. The heat had partially cauterized the wound, but this was obviously the source of the black ikor leaking from her body. "There ought to be an exit wound about here," Adam guessed as he gently lifted her right shoulder and rolled her on her side. There was a dark black-on-black stain below the shoulder blade. "I guess the burned tissue didn't bleed so much, but it slowed down her healing, too."

Tony was getting over his squeamishness as his curiosity took over. "It looks to me like a setup. Ms. Belova placed the sword so a blow to the chest plate would engage the blade and ensure a quick death for her when Bruce finally hit her good and square in the chest."

"You really think it's premeditated suicide there, Sherlock?" Adam asked with a hint of skepticism.

"Yes, my dear Mr. Banner," Tony noted with an exaggerated British accent. "If you examine the weapon, you'll see the safety setting has been disengaged." He knelt and held the sword up delicately between his thumb and forefinger on the very end of the handle. The engineer gingerly engaged the safety and deposited the weapon in a thick forensics bag. "It appears elementary."

Adam rolled his eyes and begrudgingly gave him a smile. "My question is, will Bruce get in trouble for this? Belova planning this little swan song would clear him from any manslaughter charges, right?"

"In my non-legal opinion, it does, but we'll have to see. He was defending himself and others from an attack by a known criminal and foreign agent. However, it's not like it happened on Earth anyway. Fury seems willing to turn his blind eye to it, but until we take a look at one of these machines, I'm not sure what information has been transmitted to other parties or what will be out in the media after the explosions on the street level. As long as we don't publicly blow the whistle on A.I.M., they may not try and tag Bruce as absent from Cincinnati and violating any rules of his super double-dire probation," Tony proposed. "We'll just have to play it by ear for now and let Jenn and the lawyers earn their paychecks."

"God, I hope we don't have to go there! It's bad enough I'm on Fury's radar. Let's close this bag up and get Ms. Belova on her way," Adam said, and he knelt down to seal the bag up. He was fully expecting footage to be spread across the media and Master Wong and Strange to put some real restrictions on him.

Standing up from his crouch, Tony stretched and straightened his back out. The engineer turned around and surveyed the beach and the rest of the area that looked so much like his own property. "Would you mind telling me why you picked this place to replicate?"

Adam stood up and levitated the plastic-covered body with a simple hand gesture. "This is the third reality-based place I made after Bruce stopped confining me. I started with our childhood home in Dayton, and then I copied Bruce and Natasha's apartment. Since I need to have plenty of data and a feel for a place, I either have to accumulate it over time via Bruce being there a lot or having him let me use his senses. Because he was trying to be really open and work with me on that trip upstate last September, I collected a ton more data than I normally would. Plus, just look at how beautiful this is." He swept his arms outward to encompass the whole area. "I wanted to have a place where I could feel like I fit, no matter what form I took." Adam picked up the pink child-sized pail with the black liquidy substance in it. "I was most comfortable in my younger form at first. I could touch Bruce and be an adult for a while, but I really liked being about six to ten. This is a nice place for a boy or anyone just to hang around. I like to sit and think on the furthest rock out there. I can swim and dive in the deep water, especially when I feel overloaded. There are several good places to walk or run. I talk to Bruce here a lot, or at least, I used to do that." He hoped they could still do it.

Tony nodded. "You always looked like you had a good time at the real lake." Had it only been six months ago?

"I did. It was nice to be with friends in a less stressful place without the world being at stake. Thank you, Tony, for sharing it. It was a true gift."

Tony grinned, "I'm really glad it's been this useful and important to you." If imitation was the sincerest form of flattery as the old saw went, he couldn't have felt more pleased.

Adam opened up the portal into the tower's garage. Nick and his assisting agents didn't seem to be there yet. He motioned Tony through and Belova's body after him. Before he went through and closed the portal, Adam looked around one more time and thought about their visit to the real lake six months ago.

Just getting the permissions and approvals from the Agreements Oversight Board had been a royal pain in the ass. In the end, what had done it was a major screw up on Ross's part when he'd convinced one of his ringers on the board to call a spotcheck on Bruce's progress in his required physical training to see how he reacted under stress. (See "Not Really Valentines, Part One: Trust Me" for the full story.) It had turned out to be a setup and the Oversight Board came down hard on Ross's surrogates and rewarded Bruce with the opportunity to take a weekend field trip to Tony's Upstate New York property. Elimination of further spot checks and stress tests had been the whipped cream and cherry on the top. Aside from a mission, that was the first time in months that Bruce and Adam had been out of the tower without restrictions. The mood had been downright celebratory.

Tony had invited the team and some friends up for the weekend, including Logan, who'd been training and working with Bruce. To get Bruce (and Adam) settled in, Natasha had flown up with him on Thursday evening, Sept. 3, 2015, before the unruly mob arrived. Since just after the ambush in New Jersey, Natasha had been out of the country twice on back-to-back missions, so she'd barely had time to change clothes before they were on _Avengers Quinjet 2_ and headed northwest to the lodge and lake property. Although Natasha had piloted the jet from the tower till they'd reached the edge of the metropolis, Bruce and Friday took over after a short time to give her a break and a nap. He knew Natasha was seriously tired if she let him fly. Bruce had once had a pilot's license years ago, but it hadn't been under his name nor on this continent. After the Battle of New York, Tony and Natasha had insisted he learn how to fly a Quinjet in case he needed to step up during an emergency. The team would have to be in sorry shape if piloting duties got down to Bruce because Thor was probably the only other Avenger who didn't have hundreds of hours of flight time already logged. When you could fly yourself or rely on Heimdall, a license just wasn't on the top of the Asgardian's to-do list. Nevertheless, Bruce had humored them until even Clint and Steve agreed he was more than competent in the cockpit. To tell the truth, he hadn't minded putting in the effort since Nat was a patient teacher and it gave them an excuse to spend time together.

As they continued north by northwest, before long, he'd glanced back and wasn't surprised to see Natasha's eyes were closed, and soon he was certain she was mostly out. They weren't in a great hurry and the weather was clear, so he tapped in his orders for Friday to autopilot. Bruce quietly checked on how Natasha was doing and folded a blanket on his lap as he settled onto the bench seat beside her. She stirred briefly and gratefully readjusted to settle her head across his thigh. Bruce stroked her hair, and she mumbled a thank you before drifting off again.

Although it had only been a few days, he'd missed her intensely. The first night he'd reverted to form and stayed up late working in the lab to avoid their empty apartment. Tony had been below on his own level banging around with some armor modifications, but he stopped by on his way out to see if Bruce wanted to grab a late bite. The tired physicist almost turned his friend down, but thought better of it because Tony hardly ever knocked off "early" as in before midnight. Since Pepper was also out of town, they'd ordered the most disgustingly messy thing they could agree on: the Fifty-Wing-and-Rib Sampler from Buffalo Cody's, a pop-up eatery Maria Hill had told Pepper was "worth ruining a shirt over." Tony wanted to try it covertly for some unspecified reason. Bruce was pretty sure it had to do with the Scoville heat scale and some sort of hot wings-eating contest he'd planned at the lake, but he really didn't want to know the details. Since Bruce couldn't leave the building without prior clearance, an intern had earned a fat tip to get the order to his and Nat's apartment still hot or cold in the case of the celery and house blue cheese and buttermilk dressing. There were a couple of printed charts and warnings in mock legalese with disclaimers, but what impressed Bruce were the plastic gloves to protect the diners' hands. Tony made it up to almost 100,000 SHU or Scoville Heat Units, which was the next to the last of the dozen levels of hot wings. Bruce knew he'd regret it, but he downed the last level of chicken wings for both of them just to shut Tony up.

"How the hell are you managing it?" Tony demanded as the tears and snot streamed down his face. "It's gotta be either the Gamma burning out all your taste buds or your fondness for torturous cuisine."

Bruce had carefully taken off his plastic gloves and then rose to pour Tony and himself tall glasses of whole milk from the refrigerator. "You may be right on both accounts, but I'm sure we'll both wish by morning we'd gone with the Cajun place instead. That last level was pretty close to the amount of capsaicin in lower grade pepper spray. I'm pretty sure it had either naga or ghost pepper in it."

"You're hardly even flushed," Tony grumbled.

"Drink your milk. You should have eaten some of the celery and dressing first." Bruce gnawed on another couple of celery sticks. He could almost taste the blue cheese by the time his milk was half drunk. There were some pickles to go with the ribs, so Bruce ate those too.

"I hate you," Tony moaned and blew his nose on a napkin for about the tenth time.

Bruce just smiled a little smugly, "I know."

Tony rolled his eyes and then made a sour face as he remembered something. "I totally forgot you were the one who made the atomic veggie chili that one time." Bruce flourished a celery stick like a cigar and wagged his eyebrows at him. "Thanks for going carnivore with me, Groucho Gamma Guts."

"No problem," Bruce said as he got up from his barstool at the kitchen counter and picked up the detritus from their late-night feast and deposited it into the trash and the recycle bins. "Any particular reason for the gastronomical adventures?"

"Not really. Just wanted to see if the food is worth flying up to the lake or if we should bring another chef. I think we'll stick with the ribs and flavors one through nine . . . unless you think someone besides yourself can stand anything higher."

"Well, both Clint and Nat could probably go to a ten, but you don't need to start a contest." Bruce raised an eyebrow, "Unless you _do_ want to start a contest?"

"No, not without working up an antidote," Tony replied and blew his nose one more time.

"Forget antidotes. You'd need an inoculation to top either of them. They both eat the fire-breathing stuff to get some immunity to the capsaicin in pepper spray."

Tony gave him a shocked/not-shocked look. "Yow! What's that like to kiss?"

Bruce sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn't a kiss-and-tell kind of person, and Tony knew that. "Do I look like I have a problem? We're not talking poison ivy or something like that." Having woken up in all sorts of strange spots, Bruce was pretty sure he was immune to that too.

"You can't taste it on her lips or her breath?"

"We're not talking garlic, Tony."

"Really? Garlic is worse?"

"Only if we don't both have some of whatever it's in. C'mon, garlic breath cancels out garlic breath. Common courtesy to your partner, right?"

"Oh, well, if you look at it that way, it does make sense. You two do share off each other's plates a lot."

Bruce shrugged, "She's fast and she has a fork." He didn't dare say it, but this was probably the first time in months he'd had a whole dill spear from a takeout order to himself. They called it Natasha's "pickle tax." Bruce suddenly felt her absence like a blow to the chest. He turned back to the sink where he rinsed out their glasses before slipping them in the dishwasher.

"Pepper will be back tomorrow afternoon. When is Natasha due in?" Tony asked.

"She'll be in sometime before noon and gone by 3:00pm if her time table doesn't change. I've got her gear packed for someplace tropical, but aside from that, I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I know nothing."

Tony chuckled. "You'll make someone a good wife one of these days."

"I've always been domesticated, but I'm just not always safe to keep in the house," Bruce deadpanned.

"She's still not said yes?" his friend asked with a concerned frowned.

"Nope." Bruce pressed his lips together and bit them from the inside.

"She's working too hard on that domestication and house training thing just to move on once you're done. Be patient. I have a feeling it's going to happen."

Bruce sat down again and shook his head, "That 'house training' part is never going to be done." He looked over at Tony, "How about you?"

"The next time she asks, I plan on saying yes."

Bruce threw a wadded-up napkin across the island at his grinning partner, and it bounced off Tony's chest. "Deflecting. Cecily throws her pen at me when I do that."

"Okay, does she go through a lot of pens?"

"Not that many." Tony pulled out a pen and flipped it in the air, so Bruce could catch it easily. "Okay, I guess I did do it first."

"Hey, you're making progress." Tony pointed his finger at Bruce, "She's not giving up on you. I'm not giving up on you. None of us are, including you."

Bruce had started balling up another napkin, but he didn't throw it. "Including me. Thanks. You're a good friend, Tony."

"You okay?"

Bruce grinned. "I'm good."

"Dinner tomorrow?"

"You haven't seen Pepper for a week. Maybe Wednesday would be better?"

"Friday will let you know once Pepper lets her know."

Tony showed himself out, and Bruce debated about showering before bed and decided he'd wait till after the gym in the morning. He was tired enough that he went to sleep without a problem. Adam was waiting for him in the backyard in Dayton on a swing set he'd just added. It was orange and blue and just a bit faded. Not as big as the swings and slides at the park or school playground had been, but large enough for an adult to sit down on without tipping anything. When Bruce rounded the corner of the house, Adam came running and grabbed him around the hips, pressing the side of his curly head into Bruce's stomach. He'd been really clingy the last few nights since the ambush, but he hadn't wanted to talk about it. Bruce understood and he didn't mind the silence nor the closeness.

"Hey, I'm here. It's okay, Big Guy." Bruce bent down to his level. "I'm not going anywhere, not for a good while."

The boy grinned, looking reassured. "I missed you. See, I made the swings today."

"I see," Bruce walked around the sturdy playset and stroked his chin. "They look good. I think they came with the house, right?"

"Yah, I think so. I don't remember them not being there. Do you want to try them?"

"Sure." Bruce tested the chains before he sat down on the higher of the plastic seats. Adam sat down in the slightly lower swing next him. "Are you doing okay?" He'd not brought the incident in New Jersey up yet because they'd both been so upset. He hoped Adam would eventually address it.

The child who wasn't one held his feet out to look at his Keds sneakers. They were navy blue and matched his Toughskins jeans and pale blue cotton camp shirt. "I think so. It's just taking me awhile to recover from the last time I was out. I haven't had that much to process in a long while."

"Next time you can do the obstacle course part, okay?" Bruce joked.

"I would. I like being out, especially when I don't need to worry that I hurt someone afterward."

"Same here, but I really wanted to give you more time than that. I'm sorry it went so far south." Bruce shook his head as he slowly swung and then looked down at Adam.

"Hey, I got to throw that furball. I'm not complaining," Adam said and grinned up at him in that very Hulkish way. Bruce leaned back and laughed: a very good sound in his brother's ears. Adam covered his mouth, but he couldn't keep from giggling and then laughing, too.

Bruce dialed it back after a few moments and wiped tears from his eyes. "We shouldn't laugh, but I know you've been wanting to do that for weeks. This is sad. We owe him, he's a better teacher than I thought he'd be, and he's doing this as a favor to Nat."

Adam was still grinning and giggling. "I know, but Tasha can have him. Ya know he's going to want to go at it when we get to the lake."

"I know, and he's going to be evaluating us both. We'll have to play this carefully. Show we're both under control and can follow orders." Bruce swung forward and back with his feet anchoring him to the ground.

"I can do that. We can both do that, but I'm sure he'll call one of us out and want to fight me before the end. He won't do it in front of Tasha though or in front of any cameras." Adam was guessing, but his gut said Logan just enjoyed a good brawl.

Bruce nodded. "I'll trust you to do what you have to do. He may just throw something completely new at us, too. You usually handle that better than I do." Not that it stopped the scientist from trying to prep for every scenario he could imagine, and he could imagine a lot.

"I'll be on my best behavior until I can't be. I'm not going to let him put his claws through you to get to me again." The look Adam gave him was fierce with love.

"Thanks," Bruce said and reached over to ruffle Adam's hair. Not for the first time, he thought about how easy it was to like Adam—no, not just like—he loved him. It wasn't the kind that comes from feeling responsible because he should love his brother. Guilt over how he'd treated him wasn't really part of it either. The feeling came out of knowing him now and realizing he'd been there with him through everything, all the best and worst of it over the years. "Hey, I know you like being small, but can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what?" Adam said eagerly.

"When you copy me like you do sometimes, are you really just copying how I look or is it something more complicated than that? Something deeper? I know you don't have a physical body, but I was just wondering."

Adam looked about as thoughtful as a small child could. "I think of it as modeling on you, kind of like I clone you and take it forward or up to your age from where I am, I guess. Predicting, maybe?"

"Try it and see if you can tell how you're doing it," Bruce suggested.

Adam stood up and Bruce stayed still in his swing as Adam touched both sides of his face. He didn't break his eye contact with his brother as he aged forward into adulthood and looked down at Bruce. As he caught up, Adam gasped and released his hold as he took a step backward.

"Are you okay?"

"Yah, it just . . . I hadn't thought about what I was doing before, and it kinda hurt when I thought it ought to hurt if my body was real. I mean, I'm not physically here. I shouldn't have felt pain like that. Like when you transition and I'm pulled into it."

Bruce stood up and touched Adam's face. It was smooth, but not like his own when he'd just shaved. It was like Adam had never shaved, which made sense because of course he hadn't, he couldn't. Bruce knew he had faint scars on his chin and his lower lip, but Adam didn't have any of them. He was new. "Would you unbutton your shirt?"

"Adam did so and looked down as he unfastened the buttons. "Gee, you're hairy," he joked and rubbed his bare forearms, chest, and stomach. "Don't ask me to drop my pants. I'm intact."

"Geeze, I wasn't going to ask, but that makes sense. Good enough. You're like me, but you're not a cosmetic copy. I think there's something that mimics cellular activity going on because you know enough to imagine it that way. Hmm, do you have a navel?"

"Yes," Adam said, but he did slide his hand down to make sure. This little show-and-tell was getting him a bit paranoid.

Bruce nodded and ran his left hand down his jaw to his chin. He started to say something, but paused and then looked closely at Adam's face again. "Are your eyes always green?"

"Aren't they the same as yours, dark brown?"

"No. When we're here, yours are always dark green like Mom's were. Nat says when you're calming down as Hulk that they're brown like mine, but when I dream, like now, they've been green since we met Strange. Not the glowing kind of green, but real deep almost forest green."

Adam looked puzzled. "So, I don't have your eyes now?"

"No, haven't you ever looked in a mirror?"

"Not after I've touched you." He was certainly going to now though.

Bruce put his hand to his own forehead. "Damn! I'm waking up. Sorry, Adam, I wanted to stay longer."

"Go, it's Tasha. She's early. Bye!" Bruce faded and Adam was left standing there alone. He immediately walked across the yard and entered the house. The closest mirror was in the dining room above the oak sideboard, so he stopped there and stared into his very green eyes in his adult face for several minutes before he sank down onto the carpet and shrank back to about age ten. It was getting harder to get smaller than this. He panted with the exertion. Things were changing but not quite as he'd predicted. He seemed to be playing head games with himself, causing him to question what was real and what wasn't. Maybe some self-delusions weren't so bad—they kept him going, but Adam was afraid he was setting himself up for a huge disappointment down the road. If an android or a killer robot could want to be real, couldn't a ghost or a spirit or whatever he was just pretend a little?

[break]

Bruce heard water running, and he quickly realized it was the shower. He slowly sat up and looked at the clock, which glowed 2:52am. The water shut off, and he made himself roll out of bed, so he could hand Natasha her towel as she stepped out. "Hey, you're early," he told her as he held the bath sheet out to wrap around her. She looked a little tired, but he didn't see any bruises or obvious injuries as she stepped out onto the bath mat. He did worry, so having her back in one piece was always good.

"You are such a sight for sore eyes, Doc," she said as he draped the towel around her and hugged her. Caught in a terry-cloth cocoon, Natasha nuzzled into his embrace, and they swayed gently together. "Go get cozy in bed again. I'll be right there." She kissed him quickly and started to dry off.

Bruce padded back to bed and turned the lights on low. He used the app on his phone to scan himself (yea, below background level), pulled a condom from the nightstand, and slipped out of his pajama pants before curling back up. She didn't keep him waiting long. Natasha slipped beneath the covers and rolled him on his back. "How'd it go?" he asked.

"Frustrating as hell, but it's over with for now. I have to leave at 10:00am on an assignment that I can tell you even less about." She straddled him and intercepted his hands as he reached for her. Natasha kissed his fingers before intertwining hers with his and guiding his arms above his head. He held still and looked up into her hazel green eyes, and she started kissing him. "Mmm, growing a little stubble?"

"Sorry, I was going to shave in the morning. I missed you," Bruce sighed and then he groaned as Natasha nudged his head to the side. She mouthed and then bit into the left side of his neck. _He was definitely awake now._ Bruce could smell the barest hint of an expensive cologne on her, something that stuck despite lathering her hair twice. His heartbeat quickened. It wasn't hers, but he'd smelled it once before after another "frustrating" mission. It had been over two years ago. They weren't yet together then, but they were becoming something more than teammates. Bruce remembered she'd barely made it to the mission transport on time. As had become their custom, Nat had strapped herself into the seat beside him, so he couldn't help but inhale that strong old-world scent beneath hers, analyze it, and file it away. He guessed she'd been on an assignment and not had time to clean up before joining the rest of the team. When he'd asked how things had gone, she'd said, "Supremely frustrating. How about you?" He hadn't pushed then, but now it all fired up something primal in his belly that had nothing to do with the late dinner menu.

"I smell his cologne. You've worked with him before," he whispered before he could stop himself.

Natasha pulled back for a moment before breathing in his ear, "Jealous?"

"Maybe. He touched you. Should I be? You called him 'frustrating' both times."

"You have a good memory. He's not worth remembering," she assured him. "You, on the other hand . . . I want to make memories with you." Natasha moved her right hand, so she gripped his left wrist and her index finger stroked his hourglass tattoo. "You're mine, Bruce." He sighed and smiled his approval. Still, the primal tension between them was building. She didn't have to do it for pragmatic reasons, but her hands were already moving down his chest and torso as she retreated lower along his frame. "Don't move, my love. I'm going to take care of you."

Bruce licked his lips and waited for her to do what she had planned. Natasha flicked her tongue over his right nipple, and he inhaled sharply. She made her pleased chuckling sound that ended in a throaty purr. "You are wound tighter than I thought, Doc."

"I've done almost nothing constructive today but think about you," he confessed. "I didn't mope around. I just counted the hours. Now you're here like the most pleasant dream I could possibly have." She licked his left nipple more slowly this time. "Oh, yes!" he whispered. Her right hand skimmed down his stomach to find him already most of the way to stiff with veins beginning to stand out on his shaft. Again, she gave that pleased chuckle. "I did say I missed you," he reminded her.

"I missed you, too. Now, let me show you how much." She'd been stroking him, so he wasn't too surprised when she moved down further and teased him with first her lips and then her tongue, nibbling and licking up the underside of his cock. His dick went from languid semi-erectness to an insistent throbbing erection that arched solidly up to his navel. She backed off her attentions as he began to squirm. Bruce tried to hold still, wanting more. He thought about grabbing and tearing open the condom packet then mentally scolded himself for it. Natasha shook her head and rested it against his thigh. Sometimes, she could predict him easier than the weather. "Hey, quit worrying about the condom."

"Sorry, you know how my mind works."

"Let's just enjoy this, Lover. I'm going to stroke you first, and then I'm going to put on the condom and ride you. Place your hands behind your head if you feel the need, or . . . I could get out the cuffs?"

Bruce laughed, "I'll be okay. Do whatever you want to me."

Natasha snorted, "Within limits." Yet, she smiled and stroked his thighs, guiding them apart and repositioning herself between them. She liked the feel of the hair on his warm thighs and the muscles beneath. "You smell really good." She breathed in the musk and warm caramel and salt. Natasha didn't want to admit to herself how much of a pull he had on her senses.

"I was afraid that wasn't the case. I meant to get up early and shower."

"But, I surprised you," Natasha purred. "You smell strong, but not gamey. I like that." She kissed high on his left leg where the nerves and blood were close, letting her damp hair brush over his balls. He shivered. She reached up and smoothly took hold of his shaft. The weight of it felt good in her hand and she could feel it engorge further as her fingers encircled the root and stroked. She sucked hard and left a mark on his thigh.

"Oh, Love!" Bruce grabbed the slats in the headboard. It was reinforced, but he stayed under control. Natasha grinned up at him and kept a steady rhythm stroking him. "Careful, I may be closer than you think," he warned her.

She let up, leaning back on her knees, and admired her "handiwork," letting him collect himself. "One of these days, I'm going to bring you off with just my mouth."

"Not, not yet," he said and reached for the condom, but she had already snagged it. Natasha winked at him and tore the square open. Before he could object, she bent forward and wiped the bit of precome leaking from the darkened head of his cock and then licked the tip while giving a few quick strokes to the upper six inches of firm flesh.

Bruce gasped but held back. She slipped the condom over the head and carefully unrolled it down the length of his shaft. He gave her a look, but he was getting himself under control. In return, Nat gave him a wicked grin and helped prop him up with some pillows closer to the headboard before she straddled his hips.

"You are just asking for it," he murmured as he applied his palm to her mons and rubbed against her pubic bone. Bruce firmly held the lips of her labia between his fingers, pinching just a bit as he rubbed, checking to make sure she was wet. She moaned, enjoying his touch. He moved his thumb to her clit and circled it teasingly. Then he brushed his cock against her thigh and used his right hand to stroke himself.

She finally let out a needy whine. "Do I have to ask for it?"

He laughed almost as evilly as she had. "No. Take all you can."

"Oh, I want it all, Bruce." He made sure they were lined up, and he penetrated her solidly before she sank onto him. He spread his knees apart for better leverage, and Natasha kissed him on the mouth. Their mutual hunger flared, and he opened up to her, welcoming her tongue as she probed deeper. She nipped at his lip and held it before kissing him more.

He rolled his hips, thrusting into her. "That's it. Every bit of me," he told her as she straightened up and grasped the top of the headboard to steady herself. Bruce settled his hands on her hips. "Go ahead, I've got you." Natasha's natural athleticism took over as she rode him hard, using the bedsprings to her advantage. Bruce dug his heels and shoulders into the mattress and kept up with her. She finally broke a sweat as they moved together, bodies sliding back and forth and muscles tightening.

There was just something about watching her at that angle with the movement of her breasts and thighs and hips. Bruce moved his right thumb back to her clit and rolled it in rhythm with their thrusts. Natasha tilted her head back and moaned deep in her throat. "Fill me now! I want to feel you come!"

"Oh, fuck, yes!" he growled. "All yours." Bruce let go and felt that physical release and surge of his orgasm. His thumb pressed more firmly into her nub and she came in a shaking and then rolling wave. "That's my girl!" Bruce relaxed and enjoyed the moment of mental clarity the release of endorphins brought. "How's my cowgirl?" he asked.

"Yippee yi yo kayah, mother-fucker or something like that," Natasha said with a grin as she looked down at him and stroked his stubble-covered jaw. "This was nice. You make a good bucking bronco."

Bruce snorted, "'I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck with a pink carnation and a pickup truck.'"

"Well, you're not out of luck. I'd dance with you any damn time." Natasha slipped off him and lay to his left in her usual spot. He carefully took off the condom and neatly knotted the end and placed it in the trash for biohazard disposal later. She handed him a wipe and he cleaned off before turning back in her direction to cuddle. He gently kissed the tops of her breasts. "Sorry, girls, you come first next time," he said in a pouty voice. That sent Natasha into giggles and Bruce massaged her chest briefly before scooting closer and pulling up the covers. "I've really missed all of you."

Natasha turned off the lights. "You know, that is what I hear, too," she replied as she ran her fingers through his hair. "I promise, I will be all yours after about 2:00 pm on Thursday, and we will fly up to the lake lodge before everyone else gets there and have time together."

"I'm sorry I'm being this clingy of a wimp. I did get work done while you were gone. It's just . . . I don't feel settled like I do when I know where you are and I'll be near you soon."

Their arms were around each other and their legs were intertwined. She knew he was having low level anxiety issues. "It's okay. I feel the same way. I just have a leg up on coping with it because I can plan and control my environment. I can't really tell you more about missions." Frankly, it would have just worried him more.

"I understand that."

"Do what Cecily suggested and map out your day. Envision what you'll be doing. We'll get through this." She could feel him nod his agreement. "This is nothing to be ashamed of or feel bad about either. We've both lived with a lot of uncertainties, but what we feel for each other isn't one of them."

"That is true," he whispered, and before long they were both asleep.

[break]

Bruce stirred and realized he was on the couch curled up and watching the Christmas tree. There was a shining red star at the top, and the lights were large and glowing brightly in the dark living room. There was tinsel on the tree. This was a memory from childhood because they didn't make those sort of lights or icicles out of metal or plastic anymore.

He thought he heard a car pull up in the drive and then the crunch of his father's shoes on the refrozen snow as he staggered unsteadily off the salted walk, cursed, and headed for the back porch. Bruce's breath caught and his heart pounded in his chest. Then he looked up and Adam, dressed in green flannel pajamas, a robe, and slippers, was climbing down the steps from upstairs. "There you are." His age wasn't apparent.

Bruce looked in panic down the hallway to the kitchen and the backdoor. "He's coming!"

Adam shook his head, "No, he's not. I'm here and I'm your Guardian. I was Guarding before I was Echo and before I was Adam. I won't let him come." He sat down next to Bruce and handed him a throw pillow. "Go ahead and sleep. I'm here, and you have nothing to fear because I'm also the Hulk."

"Thank you, Adam," Bruce told him, and he lay his head down and finally relaxed.

 **End Notes:** Happy Holidays! I hope you were able to follow the flashback in the flashback. I couldn't think of a chronological way to cover what I needed. Next chapter, we'll be at the lake and see who shows up! Feedback, comments, and questions are always appreciated.


	65. Chapter 65

**Summary:** Resolving the flashback in the flashback. Adam deals with an unwelcome guest. Raven makes an acceptable wingman. Wanda has been dreamwalking, and Vision encourages her to join the team for the Labor Day Party at the lake lodge. Natasha and Bruce get up early to have some time together before she leaves to finish her mission. Bruce is in a better emotional spot. Nat has a conversation with Hulk who needs help dealing with a certain teammate.

 **Notes:** This might be the Scarlet Witch chapter you've been waiting for. If not, maybe the next one will be. This is the first part of my attempt to deal with the "Wanda problem." Many thanks to Autumn_Froste and Emilygracie for the beta help. The song to listen to before you read is ELO's "Can't Get It out of My Head." My apologies if you're getting confused about the timeline. I've put in dates and references to help clarify when things take place.

 **Chapter 65: Dreamwalks and Emissaries**

Adam had stayed and watched over Bruce till he could tell his brother was safely into deep sleep and tucked him in with a blanket on the couch. Though he looked peaceful now, Adam was a little disturbed that Bruce had nearly slipped into one hellacious nightmare before Adam could act. Nightmares weren't unusual, but tonight it was the speed that was out of the ordinary, at least since Adam had been back on good terms with Bruce over the past few months. It was early in the morning on September 1, 2015, which meant it was almost four months since the Avengers initial attack on Strucker's base in Sokovia. So much had changed, most of it for the better as far as Adam was concerned, but not for everyone. It was also less than three weeks until the Reconciliation Meetings were scheduled in Johannesburg, something he was longing for, yet dreading a bit, too. Facing people he'd harmed wasn't going to be easy, but he'd longed to say he was sorry and make things as right as he could and so had Bruce.

The twin stroked his brother's hair. Normally, when he slept, Bruce came looking for Adam or drifted for a time and went into REM sleep on his own. Even if it was the latter case, Adam normally monitored him on some level because Bruce had always been prone to sinking into disturbing dreams late in his sleep cycles since childhood. If he was quick, Adam could usually walk his brother back like he'd just done. Part of the reason Bruce routinely worked himself to utter exhaustion during that awful decade of separation was to avoid REM sleep. Not smart on a lot of levels in Adam's opinion, but Bruce was avoiding older inner demons than General Ross. Being too worn out to dream kept those threats in check, so that's what Bruce did, white-knuckling it while he was conscious until he passed out. Adam didn't miss those days one bit because all he could do was watch helplessly from very far away in his subconscious where Bruce had mistakenly imprisoned him.

Tonight, Adam knew something was different though, and he could feel it like a weather front moving in. He left his brother safe on the couch and went straight to the northern edge of Bruce's imagination where the tall grass met what looked like the stony lakeshore. He hadn't bothered to change his form from a preteen in pajamas and robe as he surveyed the water along the twilit shore. Somewhere out there over the water, what he knew ended and the unknown of the void and the Astral Plane began. The wind was still and there was a damp mist, nothing that unusual, but he could tell _something_ was near.

"There you are!" squawked Raven, sounding quite perturbed. He flapped down from above and landed in the grass beside Adam. Trespassing was a little presumptuous on the emissary's part, but Adam let it pass without comment. Raven had been helpful and was there often enough that he'd earned a kind of squatter's rights. Adam knew the bird was there to watch him, but he was actually glad to have the company whether he could fully trust the bird or not. Once he'd allowed the Asgardian onto the edge of this realm and fed him, Raven seemed to have taken a liking to either Adam or the periwinkles. "'Bout time you showed up, Big Green."

"I had to get Bruce settled. What is it? I can feel _something_. It's not tripped the wards yet, but it's like a presence is bumping against the edges along the Astral Plane, making things vibrate or echo."

"More like striking a bad chord. It's a racket in my head," Raven complained. "Now, it's moaning and wailing. Wailing and moaning. I need headphones!"

"Okay, let's find out what it is." Adam extended his arms in front of his body and clapped the palms of his hands together like Hulk's seismic thunder clap, and the fog rushed together and up before dissipating into nothing. The two stared out over the dark waters, not sure what they were looking for. A small silvery figure coalesced and hovered over the surface about twenty yards out from the shore.

Raven fluttered up to the boy's right shoulder to get a better view. "That's definitely a spirit of some sort. Probably belongs to someone alive. My money is on an astral projection," Raven offered.

"Really? That's weird." They watched it for a few minutes as it paced above the waves. "It's just sort of wandering and crying," Adam concluded. "Why is it here?"

"She's dreaming. It's probably safe if you want to see who it is. She's either been here before or there's some other connection to you or your brother. We'll be over no-man's land, well, water, so you'll be okay as long as you don't touch the waves."

"Will you be my wingman?" Adam asked and Raven cackled. They shared the same absurdist sense of humor.

"Right with you, kid." The dark bird took flight and Adam's bare feet left the sandy ground. He didn't fly a great deal because he could just imagine himself from one spot to another. Still, it was easy to do either one in Bruce's head. Adam didn't rush, but as they flew closer, the figure became more solid looking and familiar. Her long brown hair was pulled back from her round, pale face, and she appeared to be wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants. The young woman was hugging herself, muttering, and pacing.

"Noooo," Adam groaned. "Doesn't she have something better to do? Someone else's head to terrorize?"

"You know her?"

"Yah, we're on the same team." Adam pulled up and hovered near her. She didn't seem to hear or see the boy or the bird as it landed on his shoulder. Adam crossed his arms over his chest and frowned, unsure what to do with the uninvited projection.

"Ah, I do know her. Not your favorite teammate, huh?" Raven asked.

"Wanda isn't. She and her brother Pietro attacked Bruce and me back last May in South Africa when we were after Ultron. She set me off pissed and angry on a populated area. People died. Eventually, the two of them switched to our side, but more people died, including Pietro, in Sokovia."

"Wow! After she did that, she's really on your team now?"

"It's complicated. If there was a vote, I missed it. Nobody has asked my opinion since." Adam was still mad, but it was a slow, simmering kind of anger, not the uncontrolled rage she'd forced on him in South Africa.

Bruce had seen the twins coming after him too late as he waited for a "code green" on _Avengers Quinjet-1_. Communication with his teammates had been so garbled that he had no idea what was happening on Ulysses Klaue's ship. Without thinking it through, he'd opened the plane's rear hatch to try and get a visual. Wanda and her brother had seen and attacked Bruce before he could secure the plane or get away.

As Pietro easily caught Bruce and held the scientist down on the ground, Wanda knelt over him and quickly realized it wasn't a simple process to reach in his mind and use a spell to flick a switch to set off the monster. To her surprise, they weren't the same being, and she was going to have to deal with one to get at the other. This pissed her off, but she was up for the challenge. She'd have to either make the doctor loose the beast or subdue Banner first and then get to "The Big One" buried inside.

Thanks to his life experiences surviving trauma and years of maintaining emotional and physical control, Bruce had a certain amount of resistance to the Mind Witch's chaos magic. He knew what they were after, and he tried to get them to understand the dire consequences of their plan. "Please, if you set the Hulk off, you will not be able to control him. We're very near Johannesburg. He could destroy almost everything in his path before he's done," Bruce had pleaded.

Wanda had laughed at him. "Have you been reading my mind, Dr. Banner? Are we making you upset? Bring out your big green demon, so we can play. I think we can handle a beast like him."

"No, you can't. I'm begging you. You don't understand the consequences. People are going to die. He won't discriminate between combatants and innocent . . ."

"Shut up!" Wanda brought the flat of her hand across his face as hard as she could, snapping the scientist's head to the side. "Pietro, teach him a lesson. You will obey us, you groveling fool!"

The scientist had proven surprisingly tough. Even after several vicious punches from Pietro meant to bring out the Hulk, the older man resisted the twins' abuse and bullying. The brother had taken no pleasure in it, and eventually Bruce had gone unconscious without relinquishing the monster for them.

"What now, Wanda? Haven't we done enough here?" Pietro asked. "He can't turn while he's out, and we don't have much more time to waste." He was beginning to think Banner had a point.

"Patience, brother." She knelt over the prone and bloodied figure on the ground and tilted his bruised face upward as she gripped it roughly with her hand. "I'm just getting started with this one."

Banner's collapse wasn't a problem for Wanda because her backup plan was ready. The Magic User thought Hulk was the embodiment of the madness and chaos she'd wanted to cause. She planned to get the monster to wreck as much destruction as possible, and she didn't care about Banner's "consequences". Humiliating him for defying her and obliterating his and the other Avengers' reputations was the cherry on top. Soon, the rest of the world would despise them all as much as she did.

With the monster's gatekeeper out of the picture, Wanda broke through the internal barriers and yanked Adam out of his cell. She had no understanding of whom or what he was; frankly, Wanda did not give one fuck about the details. She quickly hit him with a spell. "Give me your worst memory, deamon." She made him remember his mother's death several times until she'd forced him to imagine himself murdering his mother Rebecca in the driveway again and again.

That was when Adam finally broke down, humiliated and questioning his humanity, thinking he must really be the monster everyone, Bruce included, thought he was. Then she had taunted him like a schoolyard bully, seeking out his weaknesses and fears. Next, she'd hit him with her chaos magic again. "You pathetic subhuman, tell me what causes you pain!" Being overloaded and unable to think brought him the most misery, so she heaped it on him. The combination of an incessant buzzing like insects with painfully blinding lights finally did it. Adam lost the last shred of resistance he'd been clinging to. When he took control of Bruce's body, he came out in pain, angry, and unhinged. Wanda delightedly pointed him in the direction of Johannesburg with its dense population of unsuspecting civilians. They were people Adam couldn't see because he was lost in the delusion he was being chased by monsters and nightmares that tormented him. All he saw and felt was red. It wasn't until Tony brought an entire building down on top of them that the Mind Witch's spell began to lose its hold. To his horror, Adam saw the misery and chaos he must have caused. He couldn't remember doing it, but there was no other explanation for what he saw around him. Adam didn't blame Tony for using a sucker punch to take him out when the sight of the military brandishing weapons had started to rekindle his ire. Someday, he'd have to thank Tony for that himself.

What Wanda had done to him—stripping away any illusions of control or connections to humanity—made Adam decide to leave everyone behind when he had the chance in the quinjet, and Bruce hadn't been in a position to argue. _Where can I go? Where in the world am I not a threat?_

A wave of shame and humiliation swept over Adam. Maybe the witch thought he should thank her for that clarity of purpose? He'd been bitter about it off and on for months now. The team didn't seem to have missed him. Finding they had welcomed his tormentor in without a formal word of apology or any apparent consequences had been like a slap in the face, a punch in the gut from people he thought were his friends. While he and Bruce were confined in the tower, she didn't seem to have any restrictions, travel or otherwise. Maybe she'd been right. Maybe he didn't deserve . . .

No, he wasn't going to do this to himself anymore. It just made him feel depressed. It wasn't healthy. He was human, and he wouldn't let her take that from him again. He wasn't as good or kind as Bruce, but he was still a person and deserved respect and dignity. If Bruce could do this with grace, he could listen to his better angels, too. As Bruce had explained, it was preferable to befriend and train Wanda under a watchful eye than lose her to dark influences and have to face off against her once more.

All of this swirled through Adam's head as he watched the ghostly figure. He hadn't realized he was clenching and unclenching his fists and his jaw muscles. He made himself breathe deeply and take it down a notch. He should not take this personally, but he'd shouldered almost all of the blame without complaint for about as long as he could stand it.

Adam cocked his head to the side to better see his feathered guest. "Look, Raven, Wanda worked things out with Bruce and the other people she wronged, but she doesn't want to face me. I'm fine with that. I don't have to work directly with her. I'm sorry that she lost her brother, but I don't want her here. I'd appreciate any helpful advice you might have to head her back where she belongs."

Raven thought for a moment. "You can leave her here, but she's going to keep treating this like the wailing wall, especially if she gets used to coming here to mourn."

"Why is she coming here so close to Bruce and me of all places?" the boy asked. "This seems like the one headspace she'd want to avoid while she wandering on the Astral Plane."

"Good question. I doubt she understands where she is on a conscious level. There's something between you two, some unfinished business I imagine that's pulling her to you."

"She owes me an apology, a big one. Aside from that, I don't know of any connection. Bruce wants her to go through this Reconciliation process with us. I think she ought to do it, too, and set the record straight about who is to blame, but it's her choice. I'm willing to take responsibility for my own actions. She can do what she wants. At this point, I don't care either way." He huffed, not feeling much above being petty. "She called me a 'daemon' and a monster, too, so why did she come bothering me if that's how she feels?"

The bird fluffed its feathers out. "Technically, _I'm_ a daemon, so that's not much of an insult."

"What do you mean?" Adam asked.

"Daemons, _not demons_ , are intermediaries between humans and angels or gods—small "g"—or an intermediate step between them and halfway to the divine." Raven straightened up a bit taller on Adam's shoulder as it pronounced the last part.

Adam held up his hands. "If you say so." Sometimes, the bird liked to put on airs when it came to its connections.

"Yes, I say so." That irritated the emissary a bit, but that didn't slow it down. "Anyway, try talking to her. Dreamers are usually a little vague and loopy, but sometimes you can reason with them if you're willing to humor 'em." Raven could guess at other reasons these two would gravitate together, but he didn't want to tip his hand or upset his host.

Adam didn't want to have any contact with Wanda, but he understood they didn't really have a choice in this situation. "She's a magic user, a Mind Witch. Do you think she can attack me here?"

"Potentially, but that's her astral form, and you're real. Not likely she could affect you much." Adam gave the bird on his shoulder a side-eyed glare and held back a low growl. They'd argued a good bit about what exactly was "real" or not. Philosophy and feathers tended to fly when it came up. "Hey, no offense, kid. This is your home turf, so let's just say you're reasonably safe here," Raven conceded. "Don't touch her and you should be fine."

Adam let it go for the moment and drifted down to the young woman's level just above the wave tops. She still didn't seem to see him. "Wanda, hey! Wanda Maximov, listen to me." When he said her full name, she stopped pacing and looked in his direction. "Hi, uh. You're dreaming. It's time to go home to your body, your own dream space."

"Pietro? Is that you?" She was trying to focus on him, but Adam obviously wasn't as clear to her as she was to him.

"No, I'm not your brother. Just . . . you don't know me." She started speaking to him in a foreign language, her native tongue, which he didn't understand. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're saying. It's time for you to go home, Wanda."

She started crying, and Adam was at a loss. He took no joy in this though the wounded part of him had longed to see her as wretched as he and Bruce had felt. "He's gone. I wanted you to be him, but Pietro is truly gone," Wanda lamented.

Adam stared off to the side at the dark waves beneath them. He couldn't look at her in her grief. It was far too intimate. "I . . . I'm really sorry. Clint said Pietro saved him and a kid who was hurt. Your brother died honorably."

"I know, but I'd rather have him back."

"I understand." Adam finally looked at her with her light green eyes full of tears. It was really hard not to see the face of his tormentor with her eyes glowing red and a cruel sneer on her lips, but now she was miserable and obviously suffering. He could make himself be a hard person and leave her here or force her to vacate the edge of his home. He knew in his gut he could drive her away, but Adam chose not to do that. "For a while, I lost my brother, too. It really sucked. We used to do everything together. He was the one person I could count on after our mom died." She was listening to him, taking his words in. "It helped to think about the good times when we were happy. We liked doing word games and puzzles together. I helped him with his homework. He read to me a lot. I really missed that."

Wanda smiled and looked past him as she spoke, "Pietro and I, we liked to play games together. He was always very competitive. I used to beat him at soccer and kickball. It just drove him crazy. When I heard your voice, I thought it sounded like his at first. We used to sing, and he had a sweet voice, especially when he was a boy. I miss hearing his voice. I'm really afraid I've forgotten what it sounded like. I can't remember the exact shade of blue his eyes were."

"I know you won't believe this, but those will come back to you. Not when you expect it either. Sometimes that really hurts, but other times, it'll be a nice surprise. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful than that to you." He honestly would have done more if he could, but she was too dangerous to let in any further. Adam couldn't pretend she wasn't his abuser.

"No. It's okay. What you said helps me feel better. Thank you." She looked at his face, considering him for a few moments. "Do I know you? Your eyes are very distinctive."

"No. You don't know me. We've met, but you really don't know me from Adam." Raven's claws dug into his shoulder with disapproval. "Will you be able to find your way home now?" the boy asked.

"Yes. I think so." She looked like she wanted to say more.

Adam couldn't bear to listen; he had to keep up his defenses. "Goodbye, Wanda."

"Thank you for telling me about your brother."

Adam nodded and smiled in his lopsided way as he watched her fade. Raven leapt off his shoulder and flew beside him as they retreated back to the shore. The child sat wearily down on the closest dry rock and held his head in his hands. He wasn't certain if she'd recognized him or not. He really hoped not. The boy looked over at Raven who was staring hungrily at something edible in the shallows. Adam scrubbed his hands over his face. "Go ahead and chow down. You've earned it. Thanks for backing me up."

"Any time, chief." The bird sounded a bit pleased with itself. After all, ingratiation was an emissary's bread and butter, especially when he was paid back with his fill of juicy escargot. He started humming an ELO song he thought was appropriate. "Walking on the waves she came, staring as she called my name, and I can't get it outta my head. No, I can't get her outta my head . . ."

"You are such a shit. You're not even getting the lyrics right," Adam moaned as he caught on. "When you're done, I need you to tell me how to enhance the mental barriers. Don't deny it. I know you're more knowledgeable than you let on." Raven started to object, and Adam stared him down coolly. "What Logan suggested about channeling everything to the beach, so it's the only obvious entry point helped, but I want to be sure she can't get in anywhere else."

If he could, Raven would have rolled his eyes. "Do you really think that's necessary? I doubt she's coming back." He started smacking a snail on a rock till its shell broke. "As long as you don't ask someone in, this place is like a vault. You've rounded off the corners, so thoughts and visuals just slide right by under the radar. It defies detection from the outside. You have made it as safe as it gets."

"I don't care. Wanda found it. She may look vulnerable, but she's no lightweight. She took both Bruce and me down in minutes. I'm not going to let that happen again!" Adam flinched at the note of panic in his own voice. Bruce had said she'd sworn off reading minds and manipulating them after her conversation with Dr. Strange, but Adam was still very skeptical. Just because she hadn't tried attacking him this time, didn't mean she wouldn't do it in the future. He was sure Wanda had enjoyed what she did to Bruce and to him. No one seemed to understand what she'd done to them or how violated he felt. They just looked at how big Hulk was and thought he was too tough or too dumb for him to be her victim. Adam was getting frustrated enough to scream. He didn't want sympathy. He wanted to keep the one who'd made him feel hopeless and subhuman away from him and Bruce. He didn't want revenge. All he wanted was to be left alone and given a chance to do his job. He wanted what was fair. He'd tried to talk to Cecily and Maggie about it as Bruce had asked, but he was afraid they would take him off the team and isolate him further if they knew the whole truth about what she'd done to him. He'd worked too hard for that to happen.

The bird was shaking its head. "But she did that was back when you were locked up, nothing but a sitting duck on a small pond. You're in a lot better position now. You've survived and matured. I know you. You could have drop-kicked her astral butt if you had to do it today without turning big or green." Raven resisted the temptation to explain why he knew this, but he planned to be on the front row when it did happen.

"I don't want to fight her. I just want her blocked out. This place has to be as absolutely safe as possible!" Adam wrapped his arms around himself. He felt cold and that almost never happened. Logically, he knew Raven was right. He could force her out of his and Bruce's head, but that didn't mean he felt safe or that he'd been understood or vindicated.

Raven hopped up to sit beside him on the rock, grooming its feathers now that its gut was pleasingly full. "Look, Adam, I get it. What she did to you was horrible. She made you suffer, and she manipulated you. People died as a result. You took all the blame. People still think you're the monster. If I could make that witch answer for what she did, I would, but I'm not the one who gets to make that judgment. I can't interfere. Neither of us can control her actions. You can only control your own from here out."

Adam stood up and paced with agitation. "It's so not fair. We didn't do anything to her! I know she hurt us to get to Tony . . . to make people hate and fear us. I wouldn't have made Bruce leave everyone if it wasn't for what she did to us." Now, he was the one who felt like crying.

The bird flapped back to its perch on the boy's shoulder. "Sometimes, that's just the way it is, kid. The good part is you've learned a lot from it. You're stronger inside than out. You're stronger than you know, and you're a better person for surviving this because you would never do this to another person." Sometimes Raven wished it was an independent operator without a job to do, so it could act on its own. The emissary's current orders were to be neutral and keep an eye on the prodigy, but with this kid it was hard. Raven knew it had already crossed the line by befriending him. The little deamon was sure to be hearing about that from higher up. "Now, to get back to what you asked of me, we've had this ongoing conversation about what's 'real' and what's not. To make this place anymore 'safe', you'd need to accept that it is _real_."

"Okay, for the sake of argument, it's REAL. Now what do I do?"

"You're not going to like this, Adam. You simply keep it hidden."

"What?"

"You start armoring or arming yourself here, and there are people who will notice, powerful ones. They'll think you're doing it for a specific reason. You don't want to be on everyone's radar. You want to stay off it."

"But that means she could just come waltzing right back here."

"Not if you get whatever is between you settled. Then you can make a clean break, and you're going to feel better."

"I'd love to, but like you said, that's up to her."

Raven coughed. "Yeah, you're really friendly and approachable all the time. Can't imagine why she avoids you when you both clearly need this conversation."

"Hey, I'm the injured party here," Adam groused.

"You're also the bigger person. You were actually kind to her. You know something about what she's been through. Of course, it wasn't right for her to victimize you or your teammates, not even Stark. However, you have to keep moving forward. Wallowing in self-pity is poisonous."

"That doesn't mean I want her back here for tea and cookies. That's never going to happen."

"Then suck it up and do what you need to do, hero. Put the olive branch out there once more because you know she's too messed up to do it first. You've got to do this if you want to be free of her. You need to do it for you."

* * *

Wanda woke up in a sweat, breathing hard and feeling disoriented for several seconds. The boy with the green eyes wasn't there. She'd gone from talking to him and slipped back in her memories to when she was his age and her family was still alive and whole. They were eating dinner when the rockets started hitting the building. Once again Pietro and she were trapped underneath smashed furniture, broken concrete, and twisted metal in their destroyed apartment in Sokovia. In her mind, she stared at a piece of unexploded ordinance with Tony Stark's name on it.

After a few more breaths, Wanda knew she was awake and remembered her family were all dead and the despair enveloped her again. The young woman sobbed as she clutched the soft expensive bedding that might as well have said, "Paid for by Tony Stark" on it. What a fitting irony! The deep ache in her chest hadn't lessened though it was almost four months now since Pietro had been killed by the very same apocalyptic horror they'd allied themselves with—the one Stark had created after she pushed him with his own fears. If only she'd thought things through! She calmed her breathing and wiped her eyes on her shirt. It was just after 2am, and she doubted she'd get back to sleep for a while. The boy had said it would get better, but she didn't seem to have improved at all over the past four months.

Now that she thought about it, she'd gone almost a week without a nightmare, so she'd been due. She usually cycled through the creepy, disturbing ones from Strucker's base in the castle dungeon where she gained her powers and the terrifying ones she'd accidentally absorbed from others' minds. Those were the worst because she seemed to be stuck witnessing another person's trauma after trauma over and over with little understanding of their context. The worst ones involved childhood memories of being beaten and other violent acts. It didn't help that she knew these were her teammate's nightmares she was experiencing because she couldn't bring the memories up without acknowledging how much she'd stolen from them. Being cursed with reliving the horrors seemed an appropriate enough punishment for what she'd done.

The brunette sat up and turned her desk light on before she reached over to retrieve her phone from her heap of clothing on the desk chair. The device was flashing with multiple messages. She'd received an invitation from Stark to join the team at his lakeside lodge that coming weekend. She checked it as "read", but she didn't RSVP. She'd think about it.

The next message was from Vision: "I was wondering whether or not you planned to accept Mr. Stark's invitation to join the Labor Day festivities? I plan on going and would encourage you to attend, too."

Although he was just down the hall and never slept, Wanda texted the android back: "I'm considering it. Why do you think I should go?" She counted three seconds before a pajama-clad figure passed effortlessly through her wall. "Vis! We talked about this."

"Oh! My apologies, Wanda. I assumed since you were up and the lights were on that it would be more efficient to talk face-to-face. Should I leave and text you?"

"No," she said a little wearily and patted the bed beside her. "Come in and sit down."

Vis looked noticeably relieved. He'd made many faux pas, but Wanda admired how he cheerfully kept gliding along and tried to learn from his mistakes. He had on a pair of blue flannel pajamas like the father and sons wore on _The Brady Bunch_. Wanda couldn't help but smile. (The boy in her dream had worn a green pair of these under a blue bathrobe. Maybe that's where she'd remembered them from?) She and Vis had watched a number of episodes together with other team members, but stopped soon after Sam wanted to make it into a drinking game in which every time a character said, "Groovy," everybody watching had to drink a shot of scotch whisky or vodka, and if the daughter Jan said, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha," everyone had to drink three shots. Because Sam knew the programs well, he'd managed to get four of five Avengers who were present pretty tipsy, except for Steve who had only been fast-talked into playing to build comradery. Wanda preferred wine or beer, but she'd been raised drinking Sokovian distilled spirits, so she'd outlasted Sam and Scott before they lost count somewhere during season four. Steve eventually said enough was enough and declared Wanda the victor. She thought Steve had enjoyed putting them all through calisthenics just a little more than usual the next morning. (Natasha wasn't there, but later she did note her stash of Belvedere was somewhat depleted and removed it from the common area.) No one had wanted to play drinking games or even watch _The Brady Bunch_ since then. That was back in July.

Wanda rested comfortably with her covers gathered up around her while Vis sat rather primly on the edge of her bed, trying to figure out a more casual position before crossing and uncrossing his legs and sitting at more of an angle to her. "So, why should I go to the lake?" she asked. "Is it just an excuse for a drunken party?"

Vision tilted his head and glanced down at his knee. He had already composed a bulleted checklist in his head, but he doubted a data dump was going to persuade her. "Not that there won't be plenty of spirits there, but as I understand it, food and fun are more integral to the festivities. Thor is not currently on Earth, so the 'beer budget' is about half of last year's amount."

"It sounds like you've done your research," the Magic User acknowledged with a chuckle. "What do people usually do here on Labor Day? Is it like Independence Day or the Soviet's May Day with workers or soldiers in parades and flags being waved?"

"In larger cities, there are parades, but it's more of a last hurrah as the summer season ends and students return to school than a show of military strength. People go swimming and have picnics, play baseball or participate in other sporting or outdoor activities. It's meant to be enjoyable." He smiled at her pleasantly letting his words sink in. Wanda shrugged noncommittally. "I would find it more enjoyable if you were there," he added.

Wanda snorted. She knew this was the soft sell. The hard sell would come from Steve or Natasha. That was the pattern she'd observed so far. "Okay," she nodded. "You've said Thor is off the planet. Who is going to be there?"

"Not everyone has responded, but the immediate team members have been invited and there will be other guests there before the weekend to work with Dr. Banner. Families have been included for the Monday picnic. I've not seen that part of the guest list."

Wanda nodded. "Bruce has finally been let out of the tower, hmm? I imagine he's been a model prisoner. That has to have been . . . difficult." She'd only seen the physicist a few times since he'd been back, but they'd had a number of perfunctory email exchanges. It was clear from their first meeting at the tower earlier in the summer that he didn't fully remember what had happened when she and Pietro had assaulted him in South Africa. Of course, he knew she set Hulk off on a homicidal rampage in a populated urban area—his threats back in May had made that clear, but he was not the same being as the one caged up inside. There was a difference between the scientist who'd threatened her and tried to hold her back from destroying Ultron's creation—ironically, the being sitting here with her now whom she'd grown to care about deeply—and the creature she'd wronged who'd once again become a weapon and a scapegoat. She knew that better than anyone because she'd gotten a good look at the landscape inside the good doctor's head. She knew his fears, understood, and even shared them now. They actually had more in common on that subject than not.

Unless Banner was in very deep denial, the scientist didn't know specifically what she'd done to his inner _monster_. She'd wanted the "Big One," and she'd found it alright, locked up tight and buried deep in Banner's subconscious. To her surprise, the monster hadn't simply burst forth like a genie or daemon to do her wrathful bidding, he'd resisted her till the bitter end. There was an intelligence, an understanding of consequences there she'd not anticipated finding. She also sensed a real reluctance to use its power just like the doctor's resolve not to turn the creature loose. Surprisingly, this wasn't a repressed manifestation of Banner's id. It was an entirely different being. Eventually, she'd found the right memories to break it down and used its fears to control the entity. Well, she'd pointed it where Hulk would do the most damage if you could call that "control."

Destruction, violence, and pain was what Ultron wanted, and she had delivered. He'd said to tear the Avengers apart _from the inside_ , so that's what she did. No one was going to hurt or terrorize her again. A cruel twist here, a delusion there, and they imploded. The mighty Avengers all fell at her feet. It was exhilarating stuff. They'd looked so strong and arrogant, but they were all weak and fragmented. It had all seemed sweet and fitting at the time. She especially delighted in Stark's suffering and destruction—that conceited bastard was finally paying for his sins! Ultron was going to put all these egotistical pigs in their places. Then came the cruel epiphany as they stood in Cho's lab in Seoul that bringing justice and addressing grievances and making the world safe wasn't at all what Ultron was about. Whereas Strucker had been motivated by an ideology of power and domination, Ultron truly wanted the death of all living beings. He was full of twisted fear, and he'd manipulated her brother and her like ignorant, foolish children. He'd lied by omission and used them to kill just like the people they'd blamed for their misery. They were no better than those they accused of causing their suffering. Irony of ironies, she was now the one struggling to understand her role in the disaster that resulted, so she might come to terms with her guilt and culpability. She might as well be the poster child for self-destruction. Everything had blown up in her face.

Because she and Pietro had tried to correct their actions, and everyone recognized she was suffering from trauma, Wanda had been left waiting for the fallout she knew she deserved. It might have been easier if they'd put her in a cell and punished her as soon as the dust settled; instead, the people whom she'd wronged so personally had all treated her with compassion. They'd welcomed her in and given her a roof over her head and a real sense of stability, even family, again. They'd done all they could to shield her from the consequences of her actions. True, some teammates were warmer than others and many in the complex were still unsettled by her and even fearful, but the situation was improving as she worked hard to fit in and earn her place. The world in general was ignorant of her role in Ultron's plot, but they did know she was powerful because of her public actions in Sokovia. She couldn't really help it if they feared her.

Most of the time, Wanda still felt like "one big, hot mess," as Sam put it when they were kidding around. Before Wanda had even settled into her room in the Avengers compound, she'd spoken to Stephen Strange, the Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, who'd revealed to her some of the unintended results of her untutored use of chaos magic. She'd had no idea what it was she did exactly up till then. He'd shown her how to balance her use of energies, and to everyone's relief, she'd made the decision to abandon her use of mind manipulation. She could not completely cut off her empathic abilities, but she knew the only way to earn her teammates' trust was to limit herself to developing her energy and telekinetic skills. Thus far, working on those had kept her quite occupied.

After those bitter words in the lab in Avengers Tower, neither Dr. Banner nor she desired to mix it up again, and it hadn't taken long for him to reach out to her after his return. Banner alone had confronted her back in May and received two of her strongest energy blasts to the chest for his efforts. He should have gone down in a catatonic heap, but he'd kept control of himself. She shouldn't have been surprised at that. After all, he'd taken a serious physical beating from Pietro and her the day before outside the quinjet without a mark left to show for it a day later. Did he not remember it? Maybe not? She couldn't tell for certain without breaking her vow and intruding deeper. Despite everything that had happened, when he came back, he'd forgiven her and moved forward in good faith. They weren't going to be close, but Vis almost worshiped him like a father figure. Wanda sincerely wanted to get along with the man who, besides Stark, had contributed to the android's creation, so she hadn't resisted meeting the doctor. However, the other being that resided inside the scientist was a very different story.

In mid-July, Natasha had approached Wanda with Steve and Clint. They had not ordered or really pressured her, but it was clear they expected her cooperation as part of the team. The subject was something she'd been dreading.

Before they started, Steve had been pacing near the back of the meeting area, clearly a bit agitated as if he didn't want to be talking about this either. Wanda couldn't help but feel the waves of guilt coming off him. He finally sat down with the other three team members at the table and addressed her. He'd gotten right to the point: "Wanda, before much longer, we're going to need you and Hulk on the same mission. If you keep avoiding him, you're not going to work together effectively, and that could jeopardize more than just the mission," he noted. She'd sat there at the table staring at her hands. They just didn't understand what she'd done, and she was too ashamed to admit it now. She wanted her cruel mistakes to be buried deeper than her brother or the remains of her home at the bottom of Lake Novi Grad.

"Anyone Bruce gets along with usually does fine with the Big Guy," Natasha assured her. "He's doing well with his therapy sessions in a controlled environment. His social and communication skills have improved. Eventually, Hulk will be back on the team without restrictions on an as-needed basis."

Clint had been sitting beside Wanda, and he reached over and patted the young woman's shoulder. "Look, if you aren't ready, you're not ready, but putting this off longer is just making it a bigger deal for both of you. I know Hulk is physically intimidating and not big on conversation. Under all that though, he's really not a monster. The guy is a reliable teammate. You just need to spend some time with him and try to know him better." That had just made her feel worse. The thing is, she did know him better than most of the people in the room. The problem was, Hulk knew parts of her better than anyone in the facility. People kept telling her he wasn't a monster when she knew who the monster really was behind his rampage in South Africa.

"I know what you say is true, but I don't know where to begin with the Hulk. He has good reasons not to trust me, but if he attacks, I have to be able to defend myself. We got along in Sokovia. Isn't that good enough?"

"Sokovia was all hands on deck, not a day-to-day situation. I honestly don't think he'd attack you without provocation," Natasha said, sounding honest, but also a bit irritated. "He's worked hard to be part of the team again. He wouldn't blow all that effort on a cheap shot unless he was seriously pushed. If anything, he'd go out of his way not to do that."

What Wanda wanted to say was, "You don't know what happened or what I had to do to him. It was very wrong, but I thought he was not human. I was Ultron's tool, and Hulk was mine to get what we wanted. I was awful to him and Dr. Banner." However, all that came out was, "Even if Bruce doesn't remember, Hulk could not have forgotten what I did to them."

"All the more reason to talk to him and get this aired," Steve responded. "I agree with Clint, the longer you wait, the bigger the issue between you two."

"All you really need to do is say you're sorry," Natasha advised her and Clint nodded in agreement. "It may take a while, but he will warm up to you, Wanda. You're both assets to the team, and it's about time you put the past in its place and moved forward."

The Magic User kept studying her hands and turning the rings on her fingers. "I'm sorry. I'm just not ready." They'd not pushed her further, but their disappointment was clear. She almost wished they'd demanded to know what she'd done, so she could confess and get it off her chest.

She'd hurt Natasha and Tony, but they had approached her offering condolences at Pietro's funeral, and they had talked it out. She'd asked their forgiveness, and they'd agreed to go forward. She worked with Natasha and trained with her. The former spy was professional and friendly enough. Wanda looked up to the older woman and hoped they'd eventually be real friends once she proved herself. Tony kept his distance, but he checked in to ask how she was doing when he was at the facility. He was always kind, but she didn't need to read his mind to see the turmoil he felt in her presence. She had hated the idea of him for so long that the reality of what he was actually like had taken her aback. He struggled like all of them; he was just a little better at holding it at bay. Wanda kept that to herself and did her best to be friendly and thank him for the small but thoughtful things he'd done like incorporating her ideas when he designed her uniform and equipment. He'd also sent her reports on the ongoing rebuilding efforts in Sokovia and Johannesburg, which were a mixed blessing to read. He'd even paid to rebuild their old primary school in Sokovia and convinced the officials to name it after her brother.

Wanda pulled herself back into the present. Vision looked at her and smiled. "The Agreements have built-in incentives, and an extended field trip in the out of doors is one that both Dr. Banner and his alter ego can enjoy."

She nodded and returned his pleasant expression. "I'm sure they've been working hard and deserve the reward." She suddenly felt very tired. "I promise I will consider the invitation, Vis. We can talk more about it in the morning."

The android nodded. "I will hold you to your word, Wanda. I sincerely want you to come." With that he'd gotten up in his preternaturally smooth way, but this time he used the door to leave her room.

Wanda turned off the lamp and lay back down. She was having a difficult time getting the image of the green-eyed child out of her head. He'd looked very familiar. At first his voice reminded her of Pietro, but that wasn't what was nagging at her. Dark curls that framed an almost angelic symmetrical face, a few freckles, the beginnings of what would be strong features, and a smile that was not so even, almost a one-sided grin. He'd said he had a brother that he'd lost for a while. His words had been reluctant, yet kind and empathetic in the end. There was someone else, too, a harsh voice in the background. Had she seen a bird? She was somewhere she shouldn't have been because . . . she'd dreamwalked! She hadn't just imagined it. Wanda held her hand over her mouth. _Oh, that wasn't good!_ She'd vowed to stay out of people's heads, and now she had been in someone else's dreams or unconscious. No wonder the child had wanted her to leave—she'd encroached on him, entered his dreams. He'd said they'd met, but she didn't know him. The pieces finally slipped into place. She'd seen those green eyes staring at her with fear and pain then absolute hatred just before she'd finally forced them to turn red.

* * *

Bruce woke up when Natasha turned on the shower. He was really relieved that she'd not slipped away, or he would have thought he'd dreamed her up. His anxiety level was low and he felt good. No weight on his chest or ache in his head. He rolled out of bed and pulled back the curtain. The sun had turned the eastern sky rose and red. It was going to be a beautiful, clear September day. He stretched his arms above his head and enjoyed the feel and sound of his spine and limbs settling into place. Bruce grabbed his robe off its peg in the closet. There wasn't enough time to make breakfast before Nat was out of the shower, so he brewed coffee and brought her a mug. He timed it so he could hand her a towel and watch her dry off before handing her the cup of joe. Natasha looked a little tired, but she smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "What do you have planned before you have to leave?" he asked.

"Not much. I can do paperwork on the plane. Do you want to work out?"

"Sort of. Hulk and I have an appointment with Cecily this morning at 8am if you'd like to come?"

"Oh, that's right. Sure, if you think it would be helpful, I can tag along." Natasha had had to stand him up a few times. She sipped her coffee and noted he was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "How are you feeling this morning?"

Bruce smiled brightly, "Good! I'm looking forward to the week. Lots of things to do that will keep me busy till you get back Thursday." He finished his coffee and set the mug at the back of the vanity before he gave her a peck on the cheek and hopped in the shower.

Natasha decided he was genuinely in a better spot than he was last night and not just putting on a brave face for her. "Where are you meeting her? Your usual spot in the smaller gym?" she called over the noise of the shower.

"We thought we'd try the yoga studio next door since it's more intimate, but still big enough not to be claustrophobic for Hulk."

"Sounds like a good compromise. You're stretching out first, right?"

"Yah, put on your warm-up gear. The more relaxed I am, the better it seems to be for the Big Guy." Bruce was out before Natasha had brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back. "Do you want breakfast?"

"Cold cereal is fine. I want to get you limbered up and have a few minutes with Hulk before Cecily comes in, okay?"

Bruce finished brushing his teeth and cleaning up. "Sure, he'll like that. I'm feeling good, but something seems a little off with him. Maybe you can get him to say what's bothering him."

Natasha frowned and looked at his reflection in the mirror. "Is he upset?"

Bruce thought for a moment, trying to articulate what vibe Hulk was giving off and why. "More agitated than anxious. I didn't feel him till I woke up. It's the contrast between how we're feeling right now more than anything that stands out, but I think he wants to see you."

"Is he not looking forward to the trip up north?" She walked into the bedroom to finish dressing, and Bruce followed her.

"That's not it. There's something else." He could tell something was agitating the Big Guy, but all that was all Bruce could decipher.

Natasha stole a t-shirt from Bruce's drawer and threw him one. "Let's hope he's feeling talkative."

"I'll do what I can to facilitate that," Bruce assured her. He was getting a better feel for allowing Hulk to access emotional control and communication skills, but it was always an iffy proposition. Sometimes Hulk came out like a kindergartener, but at other times he could manage much more sophistication for short periods. Maggie said it ebbed and flowed, but he seemed to have progressed beyond the nonverbal stage he'd been stuck in. The therapy team described the Big Guy as cooperative, clever, and teachable. On his worst days Hulk struggled to find words to express himself, but he'd gotten better at grammar and syntax. Bruce thought, rather proudly, there was something very Banner-ish about Hulk's determination to achieve his goals despite setbacks. Natasha described them both as being tenaciously stubborn and prone to brooding until they conquered their respective obstacles.

Bruce and Natasha both finished dressing out and had breakfast, bumping elbows and stealing colored marshmallows from each other's bowls, before heading down to the studio. It was used as both a dance and yoga space, but the temperature had been adjusted down for comfort. The floor was a light-colored wood that was currently covered in large thick practice mats, and there were mirrors around the walls. Although it was roughly the size of a tennis court, the selling point for Hulk and Bruce was the 12-foot ceiling and the extra reinforcement in the floor.

Bruce began stretching out and then going through a few basic positions and forms. Natasha watched him and joined in after a bit. She corrected his foot placement once, but Bruce had certainly made some progress since she'd watched him last week. He seemed a lot more comfortable and confident. "How is your back doing? No double entendre intended, but you look a little stiff."

He snorted. "None taken. It's okay. Still feels tight though." Natasha held her tension in her upper back and feet; whereas, he'd managed to store it up in odd spots along his spine and shoulders.

"Come here," she told him. He might know his yoga, but she knew more about core strengthening. "You can do the cat and cow poses on your own, but let's try something a little different." Natasha stepped behind him and had him lay flat on his stomach with his arms extended above his head. "Now, I'm going to grab your hands and walk you back sort of like upward-facing dog."

Bruce looked over his shoulder at her, "Just make sure not to hurt yourself. That and I don't want to do a faceplant in the mat."

"Oh, Doc, don't you trust me?" she teased. "Hold on and relax. This will help with your lower back and groin."

"I trust you implicitly. But I've put a little weight on."

"Padding?" she teased as she walked him back and held his hands so his back would really arch.

"You tell me."

"I checked your body fat index. You've added a few pounds, but it's muscle mass, so I'm not concerned. I can still carry you just fine." Bruce's back finally made a small but satisfying crunching sound. "That it?"

Bruce sighed, "Oh, yes. You got it."

Natasha gently walked him back down to the mat before she let go of his hands. Bruce lay still for a moment, and she dropped down beside him. "Warmed up enough?"

He grinned and rolled over, "As warmed up as I need to get with my clothes on."

Natasha chuckled at that. She leaned forward and stroked his jaw with its few days' worth of salt-and-pepper stubble before slipping her hand to the back of his head and pulling him into a kiss. After an enjoyable minute, they ended the embrace, and Bruce rubbed his forehead against hers.

"I know, you adore me, but you need the other guy, right?" he gently teased.

"I wasn't going to say it that way, but I've heard I need to talk to him."

Bruce kissed the top of her head and sat up. He had on a plain pair of stretchy pants in dark gray without a logo. His t-shirt was just a regular one, so Bruce pulled it off over his head and folded it up, tossing it to the side. He crossed his legs and settled his hands in his lap with the palms up.

Natasha had moved back to give him room. She addressed the Interface: "Friday, consider this a Privacy Level 11. Text me when Cecily gets here." The doors were now locked and the recording devices were shutdown. They had at least an uninterrupted half an hour if Hulk needed that long.

Tilting his head back, Bruce took several deep breaths and looked inside. The Big Guy was definitely troubled but under control, so it was an easy handoff. "Take what you need . . . Adam," Bruce offered as he relaxed and surrendered everything he had to the process.

Adam's heart leapt when he heard Bruce use his real name. "Please help me communicate. I'm going to need words and patience to get her to understand," Adam told him before the agony of the physical transformation set in. Bruce took on as much of the pain as he was able to stand to free up his brother. More quickly than intended, he slipped into a state of unconsciousness. Before Adam could object, he was suddenly in physical control and gasped for breath, brown eyes opening wide. _Too fast!_ The Gamma rushed out from the long bones and his spine. It flared into his bloodstream like green fire and his heart raced. Adam's rapidly expanding lungs took in as much air as possible. His nerves were ablaze, and his limbs groaned and creaked as the mass poured in and his muscles swelled. Everything hurt, but he'd felt worse. Adam stared at his hands, flexing them as they finally settled into the right size and shape, just as out of proportion as his feet. "Ouch," he said and the deepness of his voice almost surprised him. He inhaled another cavernous breath and smelled her. Adam looked up and the redhead was staring back at him, a slight smile flitting across her lips. "'Tasha! Y-you're here," he breathed with relief. He had words. They were slow and simple, but they would likely improve as he used them. The pain was there, but manageable. He didn't know how long he'd have, but things were going to be okay. Adam held up his right hand with the palm facing out to Natasha, and she leaned forward to touch her left hand to his. They grinned at each other, relieved to be over the transformation's threshold.

"Hulk, it's good to see you," she told him and sat back down in front of him, mirroring his cross-legged position. "You wanted to talk?"

He nodded, "Yes. This is hard. Need . . . I need to tell you things, off record." He glanced around the ceiling to indicate the surveillance equipment he knew had to be there.

"I had Friday take the recording tech off line. You know I will keep whatever you need to say private if that's what you want," she assured him. "I assume it's okay to keep Bruce informed, correct?"

Adam nodded. "You be judge. Trust you." Now, where should he begin? "Your apartment," he pointed from himself to her, "talked last month." She nodded. "Told you Wanda and . . . m-m-m . . . Hulk are not friends." She nodded again. "This why. To get . . . to get . . . m-me to do what she wanted, she made me see worst memories." He tapped his temple for emphasis.

Natasha nodded again. She'd read Bruce's files multiple times and committed what S.H.I.E.L.D. knew to memory. There were vague reports from his early childhood living in housing on the base in Dayton written by the Military Police that showed a pattern of reported domestic disturbances that had been investigated, yet never followed up on. It wasn't until the boy was in kindergarten that a teacher had reported bruising and more serious injuries to local authorities and a deputy and a social worker visited the house. Bruce had been removed from the home to stay with his grandparents, but the military had interceded and smoothed things over. Within a week, the boy was back in the home.

There were no further official reports until two years later when the aggravated murder of his mother occurred. Rebecca Banner had loaded two small suitcases in the family station wagon and attempted to leave the home with Bruce. The statements from the neighbors were brutally clear. Brian Banner had pulled his car into the driveway and blocked his wife's escape. He'd then proceeded to remove her forcibly from her vehicle and strike her multiple times with his closed fists about her head and torso before she fell to the ground where he began to kick her. Bruce had screamed for help and grabbed his father's arm. Brian struck him and threw the eight-year-old child against the car. Two neighbors had wrestled Brian to the ground, but the damage had already been done. Rebecca Banner died of head trauma before the ambulance arrived a few minutes later. Bruce had gone to live with his Aunt Susan, and Brian Banner was committed to a mental hospital until his death several years later.

"What did she make you see?" Natasha asked, knowing, but dreading what it had to be.

Adam wrung his hands in a very Bruce-like gesture. "Mother's death . . . over and over. Wanda wanted to break me."

Natasha swallowed, "Oh, Hulk." She ignored protocol and reached out to touch his large green arm, and Adam didn't pull away. He held his hands still and looked at them, picturing the blood again. It had looked, felt, and smelled real.

Natasha was simply trying to listen and be supportive in helping him get his story out, but it was difficult not to react when she knew the extreme nature of what he and Bruce had survived. What further damage had Wanda done? With her own encounter, Natasha had simply relived old memories that may or may not have all been hers. The violence. The conditioning and indoctrination. The required sacrifices. Mutilations of her body and soul. It was disturbing and debilitating for a while, but she'd coped, grounded by the normalcy of the Barton household. For Hulk, Wanda had done something much worse. Everyone else had been stunned and debilitated, but Hulk had to be broken to get him to submit to her will.

"Wanda made me im-imagine beating my mother. Blood on my hands. Over and over. Convinced me I hit our mother. I hit Bruce." He looked at Natasha and shook his head, pulling his limbs in closer to his body. "Wanted to die."

 _Screw protocol_ , she thought. Natasha stood up and hugged her friend around his massive neck, pressing her cheek against his. "Thank you for telling me, Big Guy. Does Bruce know?"

"Only when he dreams. Not awake. Dis . . . disassociation is how he copes. Bruce remembers noise, red lights that came next when she controlled me. Doesn't remember Pietro and Wanda beat him un-unconscious to bring me out. He was strong. Didn't break him." Adam leaned back to make eye contact with Natasha. "So proud. Bruce tried stop them. Hu . . . I couldn't stop Wanda. I was puny one." Adam took a deep breath. "Bruce told me to tell Cecily, but she might bench me, take me off team. Please, don't tell. I don't want off team."

Natasha thought for a moment. He was right about that. "You're not puny, but you have a point." In her mind, it wasn't Hulk who needed to be taken off the team, but the situation was way more complicated than that. They couldn't just cut Wanda loose for multiple reasons. "What do you want to happen?"

"Stay on the team." He tried not to sound frustrated, but he was quickly getting tired. His intellectual abilities were starting to cut out like a failing lightbulb.

"Okay, what do you think should happen to Wanda?"

"Told you before. Hulk . . . _I_ apologized. Wanda should, too. Both take responsibility."

"That means you're going to have to talk to her," Natasha warned.

"I will talk to Wanda," he said without hesitation.

"Can you do that without getting angry?"

"I could do that and work with her. Like you. Be a pro-professional." Hulk used his right index finger to cross his heart. "Promise."

Okay, that was perceptive on his part. Whether they wanted to admit it or not, everyone on the team except Vision tiptoed around Wanda to a certain extent—almost as much as they did Hulk or even Bruce. Tony was the most obvious one; though he'd treated Wanda with respect and kindness, he wasn't comfortable around her. Natasha couldn't blame him. Clint, Rhodey, and she had made an effort to spend time with Wanda, and the other team members who lived in residence—Steve, Sam, and Vis—socialized with her regularly. Scott and Peter were there part time and still in awe of most of the others. Bruce wasn't able to be on site because of the Agreements, but he'd put forward a good-faith effort despite the complications.

To be fair, Wanda had been a model team member and student. She followed instructions, worked well with whomever she was assigned, and practiced her telekinetic powers diligently. Natasha ran and trained with her as did Maria Hill when she was there. The young woman seemed to be adjusting as well as one could expect, but Vis said she often had trouble sleeping. Natasha could certainly relate to that. The one thing Wanda was very reluctant to do was talk to a grief counselor or mental health professionals. She definitely had issues when it came to working things out with Hulk. Granted, the Agreements had kept him at a distance, but as the Reconciliation Meetings in Johannesburg grew nearer, Wanda had yet to commit to attending or talking to Hulk. Steve, Clint, and Natasha had asked her to try and talk to him and consider going, but she completely balked at the idea of meeting him. Now, Natasha suspected she knew why.

Before Bruce and Hulk had come back, Steve had pushed the idea of protecting Wanda from the press and others who might want to take advantage of her or her precarious legal situation. He'd argued she needed as pristine of a background as possible. It was bad enough that the government had files on her. What would they think if it got out in the open her powers came from Hydra via Loki's staff and she'd set the Hulk off on civilians? Tony and she had been trying to locate Bruce at the time, so they weren't consulted until after the decision had been made. After all, the team had brought her back from Sokovia without paperwork or a passport, so they were all culpable to some extent. Although Maria and an excellent immigration lawyer were working on the case, the going had been slow and securing a passport was only the first of many steps if Wanda wanted to get a student visa or decided she would like to stay in the United States.

When it had become clear Bruce and Hulk were going to be the ones taking the fall for almost everything that happened in Johannesburg, at least in the media, Tony had been absolutely furious. Natasha was angry, but she could see the practical side of it. It wasn't fair to Bruce or Hulk, but they were a well-known and volatile commodity. Wanda wasn't, so keeping her out of the spotlight had its advantages. Steve argued in Bruce's absence that the physicist would have agreed, done the right thing, and taken the heat for her. Tony had bitterly pointed out that Bruce was self-destructive enough without them helping him along, but he didn't have a better plan or an alternative way to keep a close eye on Wanda.

When it came down to it, no one wanted to see someone with Wanda's tragic history dragged through the courts and the press when Hulk could take the blame in absentia. Natasha had warned Steve that they had become Wanda's enablers and it would eventually come back to bite them all in the ass. She knew Steve was correct that Bruce would have gone along and made the sacrifice play, but eventually all this stupid chivalry was going to cost them. Wanda was an adult; they needed to let her act like one. What Steve hadn't counted on was that Wanda was far from blameless. In hindsight, Natasha now realized Wanda had hinted at what she'd done a few times, but no one wanted to pin her down and make her come clean when it was easier to blame the usual suspects. Wanda had directly wronged someone, two someones, who had done nothing to her, and Hulk needed to be treated fairly. He needed some vindication if not justice. If they were all going to move forward as a team, this conversation had to happen.

"I think you deserve something more than just being allowed to stay on the team, Big Guy. If I'd understood the extent of what she did to you, I think I would have fought harder to get all this out in the open immediately. What Wanda and Pietro did to Bruce was wrong and what she did to you was reprehensible. It's as bad as what Loki did to Clint and Erik Selvig."

Hulk was giving her a look like Bruce sometimes did that was equal parts relief and surprise that someone believed him. "Think gem in staff had bad in-influence."

"You may be right about that, but this is something Wanda needs to address." Damn, he was probably onto something, but she needed time to consider it. "As it stands, Wanda used her power to get you to do something you wouldn't have done. The consequences of her actions led to people dying, and now you and Bruce have been left to take the blame while we're covering up for her. If we don't do something, this could taint the whole Reconciliation process. No matter what she does, you need to tell your story and tell it all."

Hulk nodded. "Thank you for believing me."

"Thank you for talking to me. I've done a pretty spotty job looking out for you since I've been back in the field. I'm going to try and do better."

"It's okay. People think I can't be hurt. Too big. Too slow. Too dumb." He scrubbed his large hands down his face and looked her in the eyes. She noted with interest that his eyes had gone from Bruce's brown to a deep green, minus the luminous glow of the transformation. "I'm not this, this body. It's not really me. I'm different."

"You aren't always like _this_?" Natasha almost winced at how insensitive that sounded. "I mean, I . . ."

"No. I'm nothing like this." He gestured to his body and then looked at his hands. "Not when I'm inside. Never inside like this." He nearly said something snarky about being the Prince and not the Beast, but how would she know? Even Bruce hadn't recognized him until recently.

Natasha took in what Hulk said and his demeanor. Now, she was really curious. "What are you like on the inside then? You've never told me, and I'm not sure what Bruce knows."

"When I'm not in pain, I'm not angry. I'm not big. I'm not green." He gripped his thighs with his hands. "I talk better . . . No, I _speak_ . . ." He closed his eyes to help concentrate his mental and physical efforts to get his thoughts and words out. "Compared to right now, I speak very well in my own environment. I'm not a genius like Bruce, but I'm not stupid either." With that out, Adam winced and felt his control start slipping away again. He wanted to tell her he was human, but if she didn't get that already, it would just sound pathetic. Adam rubbed his forehead because it was starting to hurt.

Natasha had always known the Big Guy was more intelligent than anyone thought. She did her best not to show her surprise as she listened and observed his growing frustration. Speech was always such a crapshoot. If she kept him going, he usually was more articulate and less monosyllabic, but this was an unusually articulate moment as he struggled to keep communicating with her. She felt like an idiot. Why hadn't she considered that he was something other than big and green like he was now? Maybe because they'd not talked enough for the subject to come up? Maybe because she'd thought he was just a part of Bruce for a long time. "I know you're you and Bruce is Bruce. But you aren't just limited to rage and anger."

"No. Not at all. I was Guardian before Hulk. I protected and comforted Bruce when we were small. Now, I'm not able to do much for him while he's conscious. I don't know why it's not the same as it was." Adam didn't want to talk about this. He needed his friend to do something for him, and his time was running out. "Look, Tasha, I need to tell you this. I keep Bruce safe when he sleeps. When Wanda sleeps, she dreamwalks. I can keep her out of Bruce's dreams, but she needs to stay away from us. She may mean no harm, but she has no right in other people's dreams. I want our business with her done, so she will stay away." Now, his head was really starting to throb. "Please, tell her not to come near us." He held his head in his hands. _Damn!_ He knew he was at his limit. If he were really a masochist, he might try punching himself, but Adam knew he wouldn't be in any mood to talk to anyone if he did that. "I'm sorry. Tell Cecily I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer."

"It's okay, now you won't have to talk to her about you-know-what," Natasha noted wryly.

Adam laughed, but it made his head hurt worse. He finally waved Natasha off and keeled over on his side. He'd said what needed to be said, and he considered that acceptable. This was going to be a rough one. He tried to take as much of the pain as Bruce had before, but it slipped past him like water through his fingers. Control just wasn't happening. He shook violently, trying not to flail. Adam pulled all the hurt he could with him and gave his thanks to Bruce in passing. Now, Adam was going to sleep it off someplace deep inside that was quiet and soft.

Bruce hardly felt like he'd left except for the initial crackling expansion feeling different from the weight of everything squeezing down as the mass left and he shrank back to himself. He moaned and writhed on his side as the air was forced out of his lungs. After a moment, he rolled over on his back on the mat. When quit trembling, he opened his eyes, Natasha was leaning over him and smiling. Her hair looked like a glowing halo backlit in the overhead lights. "Long time no see, Babe," he said.

Nat had just checked her texts as Friday forwarded one. "Cecily had to cancel, so you and the Big Guy are off the hook."

"Figures," he said and gingerly sat up. "What was on his mind?"

"A lot. I wish I could have recorded him, but the conversation was off the record." Bruce started to object. "No, don't worry. He didn't say you couldn't be informed. In fact, you really ought to hear most of this."

"Sorry, I don't like triangulating you between us." In fact, he worried about it a good deal.

Natasha shook her head. "He wasn't trying to do that. Let me ask, what does Hulk appear like to you?"

Bruce paused to consider her question. There was some vagueness and blurring as with all things Hulk-related for him. "I think it varies. I know I've held him, so he's been small, but I've imagined him as other things, too."

"Like what?" she asked.

"I think he was a dragon or a very large panther when I tried to connect with him at Bear Lake. I know he was that big green horse from the Chagall painting I told you about. He's human most of the time, but the details are all fuzzy. I've sat beside him on a couch and just read together or watched television. He used to be just a voice inside my head before the accident. Before that, I thought he was this stuffed ragdoll. He used to cheer me up. You know how some kids have imaginary friends?"

Natasha shrugged, "I didn't have one, but I remember a doll my parents gave me."

"He was like that, but better. We talked about everything from existential questions to stupid, trivial things. When I was older, he quizzed me before tests and comforted me when I didn't have anyone else after mom died." Bruce stopped. He knew this was his brother, but it was hard to say it out loud without thinking about how he'd mistreated him.

"Has he looked or acted like Hulk though?" she asked.

"Only when I made him." Bruce was thinking of their fight after the accident and shoving Hulk down into a cell, like a genie into a lamp, as deep in his subconscious as he could. Why had he done that? Was it just fear or something else? "What did the Big Guy need to tell you?"

"He's concerned about Wanda. He told me what happened when she and Pietro caught you. Do you remember anything?"

Bruce nodded, "I was waiting in the Quinjet. I couldn't get anything but garbled noise on the comms, so I wasn't sure if there was a Code Green or not. I opened the rear hatch to try and get a visual, but before I could decide what to do, the twins were on me. I remember Pietro dragged me out of the jet. I warned them not to set Hulk loose, but they didn't listen. It gets hazy after that. I assume Wanda brought out the Hulk. Is that what he remembers?"

"The Big Guy has a clearer memory than you." She sat down next to him on the mat. "Hulk said you refused to give him up. They beat you until you passed out. Wanda went after the Big Guy, and tortured him till she had control, let him out, and set him off on Johannesburg." Natasha watched him. She'd kept her voice as calm and even as she could.

Bruce had made eye contact with her as she spoke, but now he looked away. "Okay, aside from some images, it's almost a blank for me, so I have no reason to disbelieve his account."

"He said he was proud of you. I don't think you could have done anything more under the circumstances."

"I left him vulnerable to her. There he was like a dog on a chain waiting to be eaten by bears."

"He didn't put it quite that way, but she had to go to some trouble to make him obey her."

"Shit! She made him relive our mother's death. I do know this part. He's told me." Bruce was suddenly cold and his chest ached. "No wonder he won't have a thing to do with Wanda."

"There's more," Nat continued. "He said that Wanda dreamwalks. He can protect you, but he wanted me to tell her to stop. He's willing to work with her for Reconciliation. He really doesn't want to be taken off the team."

"But he needs to talk to Cecily about this. He's been keeping it bottled up for four months without complaining."

"Bruce, he tried. When he was in the apartment, I think that's what he was trying to tell me. I just didn't pick up on everything."

"He may not have been ready, but with Reconciliation getting closer and no firm commitment from Wanda . . ." Bruce chewed at his lips. The dreamwalking was probably the last straw for the Big Guy. What was the witch thinking? Backing him into a corner wasn't going to turn out well. "If Hulk is willing to work with her after all this, that's probably his final offer on the table. Do you think she'll commit and take it?"

Natasha smiled and shook her head. "I'll see her later today. Never say never, Doc."

 **End Notes:** Ugh, this was hard to write! I can't pretend I'm an objective party. I feel Wanda needed a redemption arc in the films after what she did to Tony, Natasha, and especially Bruce in Age of Ultron. It may have been mental rather than physical, but what she did to Bruce and Hulk amounted to mind rape. I know that's harsh, but what she did had extreme consequences for those three characters. Objectively, Zemo is the only villain who has done a better job tearing apart the team. I want to like and cheer for her because she's a badass character, but I have serious issues with how she's written in the films: a spoiled brat who is unrepentant for what she did without there being any serious consequences. Well, I'm doing my best to try and fix the character in two chapters when neither Whedon nor the Russos managed to do it in two films. Help me work out my issues in the comments. Next chapter, Bruce and Natasha arrive at the lake lodge before the big weekend. I appreciate your patience. Stay tuned!


	66. Chapter 66

**Summary:** Bruce gets things prepared for the lake trip. He and Adam have a rough night. Wanda and Nat have a productive conversation. Bruce welcomes Natasha home before they have to head up to the lodge and lake. Raven has to report in to its boss after Adam takes a significant step.

 **Notes:** Thank you to Autumn_Froste for the Beta help! Done with the flashback within the flashback. Yes, we earn our mature rating.

Bruce had seen Natasha off at 11:00 am from the tower's landing pad. He'd been relieved to see Clint had been onboard and waved them both good-bye as the Quinjet left. He had no idea what she was going to say to Wanda, but the scientist hoped she'd take Clint into her confidence.

He could tell Hulk was really out cold. It would have taken something major to rouse him, and he'd have been running on pure Gamma—not what Bruce considered ideal because of the possible volatility. The rest of his day went productively, and he kept himself busy in the lab. Tony was in and out and very distracted. Bruce took a break when Pepper arrived to make sure Tony made it to the landing pad. He didn't have to worry. The engineer was still a little damp from showering, but Bruce walked Tony down from the penthouse and left him in the CEO's arms. For the rest of the afternoon, Bruce worked at his desk in the lab filing reports and paperwork he'd let accumulate. He'd knocked off at a pretty reasonable six o'clock, spent an hour in the lap pool, and gone back to the apartment. In anticipation of the carnivore orgy at the lake, Bruce made a salad and watched a couple of episodes from his backlog of shows that had collected in the viewing cue.

His plan was to get tired enough to fall asleep, but not so tired he'd be completely unreachable. After that, Bruce cleaned up the kitchen and flipped a load of laundry before drifting back to play the piano for a little while. He'd been trying to ease back into it since he'd returned in July, but he'd not progressed very far. His Aunt Susan was a really gifted pianist and a good teacher, so Bruce was working back through some of the intermediate books he still had. The physicist went doggedly through a few etudes and exercises, but he felt like something was missing. After about a half hour, he'd had enough and closed up the piano.

Soon, Bruce had changed into some "lounge wear" Natasha had bought for him and curled up in bed, but he was still puzzling over the feeling that something wasn't where it should be. Before long, he'd started to nod off and then heard one of the musical pieces he'd been struggling with being played down the hall on the piano. Bruce got up and padded down the hall in his pajamas and bare feet, not certain what he'd find, but not really frightened by it either. To his surprise, the sun was almost up, and he was the one methodically working his way through the practice pieces. It felt rather surreal. As he got closer, the Bruce at the bench paused and turned to glance at him. He smiled and motioned with his head. "Sit down and I'll go over it with you. I'll do the left hand while you do the right, then switch off like we used to when we practiced for Aunt Susan."

Bruce felt a little stunned, but he sat down on the right end of the piano bench and picked up where the other him had left off. Somehow, it felt easier after a few stanzas, and he smiled at the other Bruce as they came to the end of the first piece.

"One more?" Bruce asked.

"Let's," the other him agreed, and they started playing together as if on cue. It felt so much easier than it had earlier. This was how it used to feel when . . . Bruce stopped and his twin turned to look at him and quit playing. "Adam?" Bruce asked.

The other guy grinned at him, and Bruce noticed his eyes were definitely not brown like his. No, that was their mother's green. "Nice to have you back. I was beginning to think you weren't going to recognize me," Adam said. "The confused look on your face was priceless, by the way."

"Sorry, I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep." Bruce shook his head and chuckled.

"At least you didn't freak out. You've done that a few times when you first fell asleep and found me. That was lots of fun. Kind of like in that Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler flick."

" _Fifty First Dates_. You should make me a video. I thought you might still be out cold after everything that happened this morning."

"I'm okay. Like there's any way I could sleep after I heard you screwing up the bottom G7 chord for ten minutes."

"Sorry, it's not an easy one." Adam went through the progression with his left hand. "You always were better at it," Bruce said with a bemused shake of his head.

"Only because I practice more. Take it slow." Bruce carefully went through the chords twice and gradually sped it up to tempo. Adam nodded, "See it's coming back." Bruce put both his left and right-hand parts together and played the last line that had given him all the trouble. Adam patted him on the back. "That would make Aunt Susan happy."

Bruce turned to face Adam better. "You're right. Now, tell me what's been going on here, hmm? We've had uninvited visitors?"

"Well, _a_ visitor. She didn't make it past the front gate, so don't worry about it." Adam idly played a jazz riff with his right hand that end with "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho."

Bruce gave him a frown. "Why don't you tell me what happened, and I'll judge whether or not I should be worried?" he prodded.

Before he realized it, Adam started to physically shift back to his younger self. He gritted his teeth, "Shit!" Like the last time, he could feel the pain he associated with a real Hulk transition even though it shouldn't have been there. He wasn't sure why this was happening, but it was getting supremely annoying.

Bruce wasn't sure what to make of his brother's physical regression or the obvious pain. "What's the matter?"

"I'm having a hard time holding my form of late. Now, I'm feeling the transition as if it's really happening to me, like during a Hulk out. It's weird." He'd settled down at about ten years again and his clothing changed to resemble a smaller version of Bruce's blue pajamas. "As a construct, my form should be fluid and manipulable. I don't have nerves, so why is it hurting? This shouldn't be happening without me willing it either."

Bruce touched his brother gingerly at first then settled his left arm around his back and shoulders in a side hug when Adam didn't object or pull away. "Are you okay? It could just be the association with the physical transformation has become fixed in your mind now. You expect it to hurt, so that's how you perceive it."

Adam nestled into Bruce's side beneath his arm now that he fit there snugly. It didn't hurt that his brother felt pleasantly warm while he felt a little chilled-something which made no sense. Adam didn't want to admit it, but the loss of control was really bothering him. "Hope that's all this is." He suddenly felt dead tired again, and he still needed to explain what had happened with Wanda to Bruce. "I'm feeling a lot like I do after you've Hulked out, and I've had a serious workout." Adam decided it was best just to lay out everything that had happened. He tried very hard to protect Bruce, but his brother needed to know what had occurred, even if he couldn't remember it when he was awake.

"You're okay now?" Adam nodded and straightened up a bit. "Can you tell me what happened last night?" Bruce encouraged him.

Adam described his encounter with Wanda's dreamwalking psychic form, and Bruce sat quietly and listened. Adam didn't leave anything out, including what Raven had said about him needing to resolve the situation to keep Wanda from returning.

"It sounds like you handled it the right way, Adam. Nat told me I didn't have a full picture of what happened when we were attacked in South Africa. I should have listened to you better. I had no idea. I'm so sorry you've had to shoulder this alone."

Adam shook his head. "It's okay, Bruce. That's sort of my job."

"I'm not as fragile as you think."

"Did it ever occur to you that your mind blocks some incidents out for a reason?"

Bruce sat there, not quite sure how to respond. The simple answer was, _yes_ , he knew how his mind functioned, at least in that respect. Yet, that wasn't the whole answer. "I know there are things, memories that I'm not able to face head on; however, that doesn't mean I'll always be that way. I am remembering more. I came very close to getting your name out yesterday."

"I know. At some point, you'll remember everything." Adam smiled at him, trying to be reassuring.

"And then, I'll remember _you_ completely when I'm awake. I know it's going to happen." Adam nodded in agreement. Now, Bruce knew he was going to have to pivot the conversation a bit and talk about another sensitive issue. "I hesitate to bring this up with everything else that's going on. However, your feathered friend just happened to turn up? I do agree with him, but doesn't it seem remarkably convenient that he was there at the right time to help."

Adam genuinely didn't want to talk about the bird that wasn't a bird right then. "I know it was _convenient_ , but Raven isn't just a spy."

"I'm glad you realize that's exactly what it is because eventually that thing is going to make its true loyalties painfully clear."

"I get that, okay? It's been a much bigger help than a hindrance so far. It's not like I have a lot of friends, especially ones that know who I am."

"And where you live. You have to be very careful. I know it's your realm, but it's also my head." He hugged Adam and the child slipped his arms around his brother.

"I'm sorry. I just get so lonely, and I know Raven takes advantage of that."

"I don't want to see you hurt. I do have some experience dealing with spies, and it's not easy. Being fond of people, even loving them is easy. It's the trusting that's hard, especially when they've made their way into your confidence or into your heart."

"Scared she'll push you into a hole again?" Adam was only half teasing.

Bruce snorted, "No. I know that if she does, it's for a very good and important reason."

"I find it amazing you don't question that more."

Bruce shook his head. "Not really. If she needs you and not me, I'm ready to step back."

"So far, all Raven seems to want is a meal and a philosophical discussion. If that's all it costs for an extra set of eyes and knowledgeable advice, I'm okay with it."

"I doubt it's going to stop there. Eventually, its master is going to make it ask for something significant. If you won't give it, there's bound to be pressure applied because they will have leverage."

"And I'll make a decision when and if it does." Adam squirmed free of his brother's embrace and stood up. He needed to move. Something didn't feel right. "Is Natasha going to talk to Wanda? I'd like to get things settled with her as quickly as possible."

"I can tell you Natasha is going to talk to Wanda. I'm hoping she also tells Clint and Steve what's going on."

Adam shook his head, "I'd rather not drag other people into it. If I could have handled this with just the two of us, Bruce, I'd have done that. I wish it were possible to leave Tasha out of it, too."

"This doesn't just affect the two of us and Wanda though."

"But I'm the one who knows what they did to you . . . to us." Adam was starting to feel really frustrated on top of being tired. "I don't want you drug through it again whether it's here or in the real world, Bruce, but I won't lie for her and cover it up. More than almost anything, I want to stay on the team, but I'm not going to _suck it up_ and take the blame for what we didn't do."

"I'm not asking you to do that."

"Staying silent has meant being the scapegoat on the team and in public. _No more!_ If people don't believe me, then they don't believe me, but our side needs to be out there. They will either stand by us or they won't. Then we'll know who our friends are."

"I agree. I'm with you on this. We're going to get a chance to tell our side, just like everyone else. Reconciliation will be about listening." Bruce did his best to stay calm. He knew something more than being tired was going on with Adam. "I'm hoping we'll get to talk to Wanda this weekend."

"Okay." Adam stopped pacing; he was about ready to drop. "I guess that'll have to work for now." He wrapped his arms around himself. He felt cold and tired and a lot older than ten.

"Are you okay? You really don't look good." Bruce couldn't remember his brother looking this worn out.

"I'm just tired. I'm going to go curl up for a while."

"Do you want me to stay with you?"

"No, I'll be fine." Adam rubbed his arms. The pajamas he had on seemed suddenly thin. If he were real, he'd be coming down with something like a cold or the flu, but his body was only a construct, so he wasn't _real_. What he felt had to be in his head, a product of his overactive imagination. He'd be okay if he laid down for a bit. His toes were even getting cold, and he was hurting around his middle. Yet, he did not have a body—it was just a mental construct. He wasn't even Pinocchio with or without strings. Not real. Not real. Not real!

Bruce stood up and touched Adam's hands. "You're shivering. You're hands definitely feel below normal temperature for us." Bruce looked around. "Hey, I don't need to be anywhere. Since I obviously can't make you chicken soup, let's curl up on the couch, and I'll keep you warm." He grabbed a plush blanket off the back of the sofa and arranged some pillows at one end to prop himself up. Bruce lay back and settled his brother on top of his chest and tucked the blanket in around them. Adam felt very small. Bruce had always been on the compact side, but the boy looked especially pale and thin. "You're worn out, so let's get some rest, kiddo."

Adam was too far gone to object. Something was happening, and he didn't have a clue what as he lay on Bruce's chest and shoulder. _If I were a machine_ , he thought to himself, _I'd be powering down like WALL-E_. _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ That was such a silly book title. No wonder they changed it for the movie. He'd have to ask Vision someday if the dreaming thing were true, but Adam reasoned androids dreamed about whatever the hell they wanted.

What do people without bodies dream about? Apparently, tonight it was dragons because there was a dragon's egg on the hearth in front of a roaring green fire. Adam reached for it with eager fingers, longing to touch the swirling colors on the pulsing shell. He could hear it calling, whispering to him.

"No, use these, not your bare hands, child," a raspy voice instructed, and a pair of steel tongs were thrust into his grasp. "It has to be tempered first. Fire, Breath, and then Blood. Place it in the heart of the fire."

Adam barely breathed as he gripped the egg with the metal tool. Green, violet, and black swirled across its leathery surface. He placed the egg as deep in the fire as he could reach. Before he could step back, the voice ordered, "Blow! Breathe it into being!" So, he blew into the emerald blaze and the flames sparked and burned hotter. "Once more, child!" Adam took a deep breath and exhaled into the fire again. This time it coalesced, and the flames swirled around the egg, and it shown bright green as it pulled the fire into itself as if it were inhaling.

"It's like a star!" Adam said in wonder, shielding his eyes with his arm.

The voice chuckled behind him, "It's that and more. You can touch it now. There's enough of you inside it that the hatchling will recognize you."

"But, it's not hatched yet."

"Pick it up."

The fire had died back a bit, so Adam reached in and pulled out the warm oblong orb. It took both hands to lift the bright thing, more because of the weight than the size. As he stood back and peered into it, he felt it pulse and crack. Something pricked his right palm, but he held fast to the egg. He would rather die than drop it! The voice had mentioned blood. The shards of shell fell away and something bright green flew upward on verdant wings.

"Claim it, child!"

"Are you mine?" Adam asked wide-eyed with wonder.

" _Yes!_ " the fledgling sang in a musical voice and dove straight into Adam's chest.

He thought it would hurt at the speed it had slammed into him, but it just felt warm and the pleasant sensation radiated out through his limbs and body. It settled into place and stretched out to fill all of him. Adam dropped the last fragments of shell and staggered back a step.

"That's how it should have been done the first time and not forced upon you. It's yours now. Take good care of it, and it will take good care of you."

"Wh-what? I don't understand." Adam turned, but the place had gone dark. "Wait! What happened?" It was too dark to even tell if the hearth was still there, but he found it by touch and it was still warm. Adam sat down and wished he had some light.

 _Clap!_ said the small musical voice, but this time it was inside. Adam thought he was definitely dreaming. "What are you, Tinkerbell?" Yet, he struck his palms together anyway. The stars lit up overhead and the scent of chlorophyll surrounded him, mixing with the smell of sage and green apples he associated with being Hulk. Out of reflex, he looked at his hands. Those were the long, dexterous fingers he knew were his, child-sized or not. There was a smudge of dark blood on his palm, but no apparent wound. It had healed quickly. He wasn't cold now; in fact, he felt alive and connected with more of himself than ever before. Green sparks played across his fingertips. _Home!_ It was a harmony he'd never known before, but he was still tired to the bone and the fatigue couldn't be ignored any longer. He could feel the breeze and hear it playing through the grass. There were some fireflies blinking an amber gold he'd not seen before. The crickets and peepers were actually quite loud and enthusiastic. There must be trees nearby. He smiled to himself. This almost seemed real, like he was somewhere in North America, maybe? Adam looked up. There was no light pollution, so he could see everything above clearly. The constellations were . . . different.

"It's beautiful here, but I need to go home and rest," Adam murmured, ready to doze off.

 _Click your heels together. There's no place like home. My home is your home. Home is where the heart is. Home, sweet home. The Last Homely House. You are my home! My only home! I am home! Home!_

* * *

Bruce was about to panic because he didn't know what to do. He'd held Adam for at least an hour and gone over a dozen useless theories for why his brother was still so cool to the touch and seemed to be headed into a coma. Bruce thought the boy's body might have dipped below 95 degrees in his hands and feet, and he was as limp as the ragdoll he'd once been named after. Bruce knew this was the threshold for hypothermia. Logically, the scientist understood he was in a dream world, but the illusion of this reality had to have some bearing on actual reality. He wrapped Adam up in the plush blanket and threw another one over the top of them, hugging the boy to his chest and rubbing his hands in his own. The only thing that kept Bruce from completely freaking out was that the child's breathing was good and steady and his color, though pale, was not oxygen deprived or blue.

The only person he could think of that might help was Stephen Strange, but there was no way to contact him. If Bruce woke up, he might completely forget everything, and Adam would be left abandon on the couch or wherever he really existed. Bruce thought about taking him into the soaking tub or the shower like Nat and Tony had done for him when he'd had the fever, but the physicist had to again remind himself this was a dream. What he perceived was his brain's attempt at making sense of what was happening inside.

The life force seemed to have been sucked out of Adam. Bruce reasoned that Adam must run on energy from the Gamma, so maybe that's what was missing or disconnected. If that were true, Bruce wasn't sure how to rekindle or reconnect to it. He didn't have a way to even take readings. Then he began to consider what would happen if Adam didn't wake up. Bruce was grief stricken and hugged the child closer, running his hands up and down his back as he tried to think his way out of this Gordian knot of a problem.

"If you just let him go, no one would blame you," a voice out of Bruce's worst memories said softly from the far end of the couch.

Bruce struggled to sit up, shifting the sleeping child to his lap. "You're dead. What do you want?" he asked as he glared at the older man sitting casually at the end of the sofa.

Brian Banner leered back at him, clearly enjoying the situation. The same lopsided smile that looked charming on Adam and even Hulk looked decidedly malicious on his thin lips. "You can't think dispassionately or logically about your own situation, so I'm here to help you, son."

"Leave," Bruce ordered. "I have no interest in anything you have to say."

Brian pulled out a pack of Salems and a Bic lighter from his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette. "I'll leave when you've heard what I have to say. I know you consider that thing your brother, but he's nothing to you. Now is a rare time when it's weak. If you put the thing down, it will sever your ties to the Gamma, and you'll be free, son." He took a long draw and blew out a cloud of bluish smoke as Bruce stared back at him in horror. "All you need to do is take one of these pillows and hold it over its face. It's weak, so it won't take much to let the thing slip away peacefully. This is what you've wanted ever since the accident. You know I'm right."

"No, no you're not. You couldn't be further from the truth. Now, get out before I make you!" It was like the devil was there tempting him with his deepest, most selfish desire, but Bruce refused to have anything to do with it.

"Alright, you seem to have your mind made up to stick with the coward's status quo, but we both know you've thought about doing all sorts of things to be rid of the poison you infected yourself with. You've convinced yourself that you're at peace, but we both know you'll not be happy until you've rid yourself of the cause of your misery—no matter what the cost to anyone else, including that counterfeit in your arms."

In one sudden and fluid motion, Bruce shifted Adam's body to his left arm and transitioned into Hulk. He easily reached over and grabbed his father by the throat with his right hand. "You murdering sack of shit! I don't know how you got in here, but I will put an end . . ." The older man started to laugh. "Shut up!" Bruce gave him a hard shake.

"If you think I got _in_ from outside of you, the joke is on you Bruce, my boy. I got _out_ from the inside. _Consider that_. I'll see you again, son." With that, he melted away like the last puff of cigarette smoke, leaving a foul reek that clung to everything.

"NOOO!" Bruce howled. He sobbed and gingerly held Adam to his massive chest. The one good thing was his larger body was now putting out more heat to share. He rocked Adam. Finding a few words to pray even if they weren't really directed at an entity he wasn't sure existed. "Please. Please. He's all I have left of what was good." After a few minutes, he rubbed his cheek delicately against his brother's forehead. Adam didn't seem as cold as before, so Bruce hesitantly used the back of his oversized hand to check again. Warmer, definitely warmer! He started to cry out of sheer relief and shrank back down to himself.

Adam knew he was laying on top of Bruce's chest because he recognized his breathing, but what woke him up was the smell. It was warm and a bit like milk and caramel and salt and . . . sweat? He opened his eyes and for a split second he was looking at the bedside clock in the apartment's master bedroom and it said 4:53 am. He blinked and raised his head to try and focus because that couldn't be right. Adam inhaled again and thought he detected Natasha's citrusy smell, but it was old, like she'd been here and gone. The next moment, he was caught in a blanket and rolling off of Bruce and onto the rug between the sofa and the coffee table. At this size and age, he was all legs and flailing arms as he tried to straighten himself out.

"Here," Bruce said, as he sat up and helped pull the blanket off him. "Please tell me you're feeling better."

"Like a warm burrito," Adam said, checking his limbs and then rubbing his eyes. He sniffed and he didn't smell Bruce anymore, but he smelled the iron-rich odor of blood and the bitter undertone of the Gamma. He looked at his right palm and there were crusty traces of blood in the creases but no sign of a wound. _Shit, what did this mean?_ Adam looked up at his brother who offered his hand. Bruce looked like he hadn't rested at all. Adam took his hand and sat down beside Bruce on the couch. "You look like shit. Sorry, I know it's my fault." Adam touched his brother's left shoulder, "Eww, sorry. I think I drooled on your shirt."

Bruce surprised Adam by throwing his arms around him. "I don't care. As long as you're okay, I don't care."

Adam hugged him back. He must have seriously frightened his brother. "I'm okay, Bru. I feel pretty good. Weird dreams, but I really am fine now." He nuzzled into Bruce. "What happened?"

Bruce turned loose of Adam and settled back more comfortably on the sofa cushion. "You felt really cold and limp. I didn't know what to do for you. I . . . it was awful. It seemed like forever before you finally warmed up." He didn't want to tell Adam what or whom he'd imagined. He just couldn't. He was afraid there was too much truth in it.

"I promise, Bruce. I'm okay now. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm through it." He looked at his brother's red-rimmed, tired eyes. "I think you need to go get some deeper sleep and not worry about me. Come on." Adam got up and tugged at Bruce's arm until he stood up, and Adam led him to the master suite. Bruce climbed into bed without objecting and finally slipped into real unconsciousness.

Adam breathed a deep sigh of relief. He could feel Bruce was still upset, but he seemed to be calming down from his elevated level of inner turmoil. For once, Adam thought they'd both be happy if Bruce didn't remember what had happened in his realm. He closed the bedroom door and walked into the hall bathroom and turned on the light.

Adam wasn't fond of looking at himself in mirrors, but he made himself do it now. He looked like a very rumpled preteen who'd been up all night. Judging by his reflection, he didn't look as bad as Bruce did, but he was still in need of downtime. He opened his right hand again and traced over the palm with his left thumb. He tried to remember if Bruce's hands once looked like this or if his were different. He knew he had a better reach on the piano than Bruce, so he reasoned they had to be different.

The boy looked up and leaned over the sink to get a closer view of his face. Dark curls that defied being tamed, a few freckles dotting fair skin, a nose that might eventually tend toward Romanish like his brother's, dark eyebrows and lashes, generous lips, straight white teeth. How had he not known his eyes were this green instead of dark brown like Bruce's? He moved his mouth and jaw, stretching his lips, sticking out his tongue, and making faces. He'd almost never looked at himself when he was Hulk. Of course, it wasn't like he'd ever had a lot of opportunities in the real world to look in a mirror either.

Adam turned on the warm water and washed his hands and face. Then, he shook his head to try and clear out the cobwebs. He could feel Bruce was okay, so it was safe to go do what he wanted. A walk seemed like a good idea. He wanted a sunny, sandy beach and maybe he'd build a lighthouse or just some rocks. Adam felt good. He'd figure it out.

* * *

Bruce realized his alarm had been buzzing for a while when Friday got insistent with him at 7:08am. "Dr. Banner, are ya aware yer scheduled Parkour session is in twenty-two minutes?" the Interface demanded.

"I am now, Friday. Thank you, I'll be down to the gym on time." Bruce reached over and shut off the alarm clock. He rolled on his back and tried to orient himself. It was Wednesday. Natasha would be back tomorrow by 2pm, and they'd head north to the lake. He needed coffee, but first he felt like his tongue needed to be mowed or shaved or something. Bruce leveraged himself out of bed and quickly flicked the covers and bedding in place to remove the temptation to fall right back down and burrow in for the day.

There wasn't time for a shower, so he ran some warm water in the sink and finally looked up at himself in the mirror. There was a dark, damp spot with whitish residue outlining the edges on the left shoulder of his shirt that went over the side and onto the back of his arm. Bruce raised an eyebrow because that was odd, even for him. He pulled the shirt off and sniffed it warily, half expecting it to smell like Nate Barton's urpped up bottle or worse, so it was a pleasant surprise when it smelled like something plant-based instead: unripe apple . . . crushed grass . . . definitely, sage. Oh shit, he'd Hulked out! Then he held the shirt up again, but it was obviously intact, so were his pajama pants and boxer shorts. _What the hell?!_

This left "odd" in the rearview mirror. He threw the shirt into the laundry. " _Eww, sorry. I think I drooled on your shirt_." Who the hell said that? He'd dreamed that, so how did the shirt end up spit-soaked now? He couldn't have done it himself, short of some serious contortion. Bruce continued to clean up and quickly got dressed in his Parkour clothes before he headed out the door and down the stairs. He had to have partially Hulked out. There just wasn't another explanation.

"Friday, may I please see the radiation and body heat data from last night? Download it on my phone."

"Certainly, Dr. Banner. Mr. Logan is waitin' in the secondary gym. He said to tell ya it's 'Pegs 'n Legs Day' if that holds any significance fer ya."

"Unfortunately, it does. Thanks, Friday."

"A pleasure, Doctor."

* * *

The most crucial outcome for any Avengers' covert operation, Natasha believed, was making sure the whole team could walk away at the end of the mission. Earlier in her professional life, she hadn't prioritized things that way. In fact, the brutal pragmatism she'd learned in the Red Room ran counter to it: completing the mission was the only priority. However, she'd begun to question that approach when she met Logan during a joint operation with NATO many years ago. Later, she'd abandon that ruthless point of view after S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Clint Barton had disobeyed orders to kill her and brought the infamous Black Widow in from the cold and recruited her to work for his agency and Director Nick Fury. If Barton hadn't seen something worth saving, she'd have died in that snowy ditch and not been found until spring—one more victim of a meaningless war.

Maybe that's why she'd never considered giving up on Wanda Maximoff. In some ways, they were alike—both women had been used and shaped by entities who saw them as mere tools, cogs in their killing machines at a young age. Yet, in most other ways, they were very different. Natasha barely remembered her family. She'd been close to her sweet old babulya, but she couldn't remember her parents' or siblings' faces—she thought there were an older pair of twins, but she couldn't be sure. Natasha was the youngest child and not planned for, so when an offer was made for the beautiful little redheaded ballerina . . . No, she had to be careful. She knew for a fact that not all of her memories were her own. Although she remembered dancing on pointe on the stage, she had nothing but the remnants of wear-and-tear on her body and muscle memory to prove it. At least Wanda knew her family had loved her, and she'd had her brother beside her until his sacrifice during the Battle of Sokovia. Well, Natasha felt she owed Pietro a debt for saving Clint, so she'd forgiven though not forgotten what Ultron had manipulated the twins into doing . . . until Hulk had told her what they'd done to Bruce and the Big Guy. Now, she felt conflicted but determined to work it out.

Natasha had put off approaching Wanda until the operation had concluded. Not everything had gone as planned. The team had made it back safely, but she would have preferred it if all of their objectives had been met as well. The setup had gone perfectly on the first day. They'd infiltrated the dictator's island compound without being detected only to find their intel was inconveniently outdated. That meant she'd had to hack the system on the spot. It took time and that had cost them stealth.

What should have been a simple "in and out" under the cover of darkness turned into hours of playing cat and mouse and then waiting for darkness again. By the time they had raided the right lab and warehouse to confiscate the Chitauri-based weapons, they were hours over their pickup time at the rendezvous and barely made it out with everyone unscathed. They had to leave the digital files with their clues about the weapons' designers behind as they dodged the military, but Natasha had left the would-be subjugator a little surprise in the system to take care of those ambitions and track the arms manufacturer down later. Not what they'd planned, but eventually they'd have the bastards.

They'd had to swim part of the way in and part of the way out, so she, Clint, and Steve were dead tired when they made the plane. Wanda and Sam had wanted to join them in the field, but Steve had nixed the idea since they would be too visible and two extra personnel weren't needed in the field for a stealth operation. The two junior members had been tasked with the extraction of the "package" of procured weapons and equipment as well as standing by as backup with a couple of experienced S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents.

By the time they were all on _Avengers Quinjet 3_ and headed for home, it was the wee hours of Thursday morning, and everyone was worn out and relieved things hadn't gone worse. After she'd cleaned up, Natasha called Wanda over to one of the more private alcoves in the relatively small jet. Before Nat could even start her well-reasoned persuasive pitch, the Magic User stopped her.

Wanda settled onto the bench seat next to the redhead and gave her a rueful smile. "Please, let me go first. I think I know why you'd like to speak to me, Natasha."

Nat cocked a curious eyebrow. "Please, go ahead."

Wanda fidgeted nervously with her rings, but she looked determined. "I have put this off for too long, but I'm ready now. I would like to speak with Hulk and, if it's possible, I want to tell him how sorry I am."

"I think both he and Bruce will be pleased to hear that." Natasha certainly was, and she knew a lot of other people who'd welcome the news, too.

"Good, because I need to get this off my chest. I feel horrible about what happened in Sokovia and South Africa. It's mostly my fault, and Bruce and Hulk don't deserve being blamed. I know Steve said the team takes responsibility for its actions as a group, but I made my choices. I did what I did. There would not have been an Ultron if I hadn't pushed Tony. If I had left Bruce alone, well, we all know what happened after that."

Natasha reached over and squeezed her protégé's hand. "This is going to help the situation a great deal, Wanda." The older Avenger couldn't help but smile. "How would you like to do this?"

The younger woman thought for a few moments before she spoke. "Bruce will be at Tony's lake celebration with you this Labor Day weekend, correct?"

"We're supposed to fly up Thursday—well, I guess that's later today. We wanted to give the Big Guy some time to settle in and have some room to stretch. I can let you know what time we'll arrive once plans have firmed up. You might want to meet with him before everyone else starts arriving. Let's plan for around 6:00 pm. I'll let you know if that changes."

"That sounds like a good strategy," Wanda acknowledged with a nod. "I took the liberty of viewing some of Hulk's therapy session videos, the ones that are part of the Agreements' Progress Reports."

"Right, we're required to include those as evidence of progress," Natasha noted.

"In the videos, there is a proper procedure to follow when approaching him, correct?"

"Right. There's a protocol to make certain he's calm, and you have each other's permission to approach. It's meant to avoid accidents and misunderstanding, even if he has already worked with someone."

"Maybe we should use this same protocol when we meet? I don't want to upset him."

"I'm sure he'll appreciate it. Bruce calls it a ritual, like a tea ceremony or a religious liturgy, that gives everyone a structure to follow. Hulk stays seated and raises a hand when he's ready for someone to approach. Then you touch his hand or give him a high five. He'll remain seated unless he needs to move."

"Alright, that sounds simple enough."

"Do you want me or maybe Vis to be there?" Natasha asked.

That gave Wanda pause. "Perhaps it would be good if you were nearby, but I'd rather talk to him by myself. I think Vision will be alright with that."

"Okay, sounds like we have a plan," Nat responded. "Oh, how many of those videos did you watch?"

"I watched two of them. That's all I was able to access before we left."

"You probably saw that Hulk's verbal abilities can vary from session to session and even from moment to moment. If he's having problems expressing himself, that's when he gets the most frustrated. As long as he's not stressed, the Big Guy seems to keep his intelligence. It's the vocabulary and speech that can swing from fairly normal down to almost a preschool level. He's fairly inventive with nonverbal communication, but he can get frustrated if he can't get his point across."

"Is there any way I can make things easier for him?"

Natasha shrugged, "Treat him like anyone else. All he wants is the dignity and respect everyone should have."

Natasha had spent the remainder of the trip home writing up her report in great detail since she wasn't attending the debriefing due to being let off at the tower instead of continuing north to the new Avengers facility with the others. After that, she tried to sleep, but she couldn't manage it as she turned over in her mind how to handle every contingency for how the weekend might roll out. They were flying high to avoid some rough weather over the Gulf of Mexico, but Sam was the only one who could sleep through the turbulence. She'd ended up comparing notes with Clint and Steve as they speculated about where the weapons had come from and who was crafting them. She suspected it was someone close to home who went by the nickname of the Tinkerer, but they'd have to wait for the virus to kick in before they had enough information to do more than guess.

Hours later, they'd dropped her off on the tower's pad. Bruce had been waiting for her, still balancing on the balls of his feet and eager to see her. She let him shoulder her duffle bag without protest and lead her down the hall to the elevator. Natasha waited till they were in the elevator before she grabbed his ass.

"Missed me, huh?" he said with a grin as he reciprocated, dropping the luggage and pulling her into a hungry embrace.

"Every fucking minute I wasn't being shot at or interacting with someone," she told him breathlessly before his eager lips pressed against hers. She threw her arms around his neck and Bruce lifted her. The momentum had him bumping his back into the wall of the elevator, but he quickly compensated, so Natasha wrapped her legs around his waist. The elevator stopped on their floor and Bruce kicked her duffle bag through the door, so it spun into the wall beside their apartment door. They were laughing and kissing as Nat reached over his shoulder to punch in the entry code.

"You're later than expected, but there's still time to clean up or do other things before we head out," he told her.

"Are you saying I'm travel worn? Because to be honest, I really am feeling that way."

"Let me take care of you then." He kicked the bag inside the foyer, and she shut the door behind them as he turned them. "Let me make love to you so you can sleep well, and then I will feed you and get you cleaned up and we'll head north. The bags are packed, I've got a cooler full of food, and the plane is serviced, so no hurry, no worries."

"You are so good to me, Doc." Bruce smiled at her without replying and walked them back down the hall and into the bedroom where they disentangled. He helped get her out of her boots and clothing, but he didn't let her remove his clothes. Instead, Bruce stayed kneeling on the floor after he'd pulled off her socks and then her panties, which he examined and inhaled from deeply before discarding them with the rest of her clothing. Natasha laughed at him and shook her head.

"You smell so damn . . . edible!" Bruce guided her left leg over his right shoulder, and Natasha chuckled and lay back on the bed propped on her elbows to watch him. He kept his dark eyes on hers as he kissed up her thigh, teasing her with little nips followed by the lightest of kisses. "Did I say that I missed you yet?" he asked as he kissed closer and closer, further and further up.

"No, I said I missed you though. I've missed hearing your voice. I've missed your lips on my skin. I've missed your goofiness. I've missed getting lost in your eyes." Bruce grinned up at her between kisses, and she licked her lips suggestively. "I've missed your warm hands on me. I've missed you eating me out and bringing me off with your tongue."

"Then I better take care of some of those needs," Bruce told her in a low voice. He pulled Natasha a little closer and nuzzled into her right thigh. He'd shaved about an hour ago, so he didn't need to hold back for concern about giving her beard burns in delicate places. Not that she would have complained. Natasha moaned as he bit into her upper thigh close to her groin and then sucked hard to leave a bruise. "Mine," he murmured in that same low voice. Natasha gave a needy whimper and reached down to run her fingers through his hair, and Bruce palmed her silky-haired mons, pressing down to increase the friction on her clit and other sensitive parts. He turned his attentions to her labia and pulled at her lower lips teasingly before parting them to expose her inner folds. "Your cunt smells so good. I can't wait any longer." He kissed her full on with his lips and tongue, pressing into her and working her with his mouth.

"Oh, yes! Like that, Bruce!" Natasha buried her hands in his curls. "I've gotten so wet thinking about you. God, don't stop!" Curving her leg around his back, she pulled his hair and thrust her hips to meet him. Bruce took a firm hold of her left thigh and hip. He jammed his chin into her as he used his tongue to lap rhythmically at her nub. Nat cried out, "More, so close . . . so ahh!" He fluttered his tongue and then sucked. "Yes! Oh, Bruce!"

He couldn't keep from smiling as he felt her go over the quivering edge. There was something very satisfying about seeing her experience pleasure at his touch. He daydreamed about new ways to bring her orgasms, to make her feel as happy and loved as he could. Whether or not he got off was completely secondary. Bruce tried not to grin too much as he flopped down beside her, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

She turned her head and looked at him from under half-closed eyelids. "Well, aren't you smiling like the canary who ate out the cat." This had him chuckling, so Natasha reached over and pressed her index finger to his nose which was still damp. She pulled him over by his shirt collar and he didn't resist. His left hand went to her right breast, and he squeezed firmly, feeling her tight nipple against his palm. Natasha caught his lower lip in her teeth, but stopped herself short of biting down enough to draw blood. Bruce pulled his lip free and kissed her. He tasted of her and him and the mint of his toothpaste: a mix of raw sex and the mundane.

She reached for his waistband, but he caught her wrist. "No, this is about you," he told her.

"So, you're taking a rain check? I like giving as well as getting," Natasha reminded him.

"I'm doing fine. You've had a rough mission, and I'll wait till we both have a rest."

"How do you know . . . ?" she started to ask, but he stopped her with a brief kiss.

"I know you better than that. All I have to do is look at you; besides, you're over two hours late. Sam or whoever was piloting practically dropped you off with a parachute, so I imagine the whole mission was probably like _that_."

Natasha lay back and rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to deny any of 'that,' Sherlock, but . . ."

"You can't confirm it either. Yada-yada. I know how it works. Was Wanda there as planned?"

"Yes," Nat acknowledged with a big grin and she rolled toward him on her side to face him. "Before I could even broach the subject, she told me she wants to meet with Hulk as soon as possible. How does that sound?"

"Well, wonderful of course! I had a feeling she'd be ready. What happened to bring her around?"

"As you suspected, she's finally made up her mind that it's time. I'm supposed to let her know when we'll be leaving for the lake and work out a time before it gets too crowded with everyone else arriving."

"The sooner the better then," Bruce said with a frown. "We'll be up there by 5:00 pm, which leaves over two hours of daylight. Would that be too soon for her? The staff are supposed to start arriving early tomorrow, Friday morning. I don't think Hulk would cause any problems, but the fewer people around . . ."

"Oh, you're right about the staff." Nat chewed on her lower lip. "How about I text her and see how she feels about this afternoon?" Natasha asked and Bruce nodded. She sighed a little, so much for a leisurely send off. "Okay, why don't you warm me up some soup or something and I'll get cleaned up. I'll pilot us out of metropolitan airspace, and you can handle it from there."

"Alright, Thai Chicken and Coconut sound agreeable? I made dinner for Tony and Pepper last night, and I kind of went overboard."

"Sounds very agreeable to me, Doc." Natasha rolled out of bed and retrieved her phone from her clothing to text Wanda. "This is going to be one interesting day before it's over."

About an hour later, they were out of New York City's airspace and flying north by northwest. Bruce had piloted for a bit, but he saw his sweet spy had finally given in, and she'd passed out while still in the harness. He'd confirmed their flightpath and turned the controls over to Friday before he slipped back to sit with Natasha. He'd folded up a blanket for a pillow and placed it in his lap for her. When he adjusted her belts, she'd barely awoken enough to acknowledge him as she lay her head down. Bruce gently brushed her hair back from her face. It took a while before she quit frowning, but eventually her features relaxed. He thought again for the thousandth time how lucky he was to be with her, that she cared about him and even Hulk. He wondered if he should sleep and try to find Hulk and give him a heads up, but Bruce was reasonably sure the Big Guy already knew.

* * *

When Bruce had slipped off into deep sleep, Adam had gone back to the shore and shifted where he was walking to something warmer with a sandy beach as he meandered along in just a pair of swim trunks. He'd eventually fallen asleep on a blanket under a red umbrella. When he woke up, he was almost humming with energy. There was a sense that something inside him had been reset. Adam looked at his hands and wondered what they would feel like if they were real. Green sparks played across his fingertips. He dug his hands into the warm sand until he found the cooler damper layers underneath. He thought of Bruce building sand castles and earthenworks and giving him advice how to use bark and sticks to reinforce them to build higher and deeper. Bruce had listened to him, and they'd figured it out without help from Cousin Rich. Here, Adam didn't have to settle for what his hands or Bruce's alone could build. He could do it all with his mind and will. He grinned, thinking reality might be overrated in some respects.

Adam put the energy buzzing through him to use feeling and charting the bones and roots of his space. He was in the mood for creating a chain of rock formations out into the water. True, he had thought about making a lighthouse, which would have been the sensible thing to do. Yet, there was so much power firing through him that it made Adam want to do something bigger and more exciting. The boy felt like he had real blood in his veins, and it was singing to him like a song of making. He didn't want to make buildings, he wanted to build a landscape and reshape this bit of coastline, so he did.

Adam half remembered a place from Bruce's travels or maybe a nature film that inspired him. He imagined rocky spires that cascaded down like steps from a cliff to make a protecting arm around a bay to shelter it from the turbulence of deeper waters. He gathered what he needed and raised a cliff that towered over him. He laughed at how easy it had been. The rock formations he made were volcanic and very satisfying to pull out of the ocean floor throwing off steam, and once they were started, he ran a chain of them out to what was the edge of his influence a little over two hundred yards into the water. He knew he was nearing the void, but the joy of pushing his abilities and bringing big, solid things into being—constructs or not—was immensely satisfying. He built the rocks and the cliffs, and he used time to weather and sculpt them and soften the edges. He closed his eyes and sloped the contours, so the area fit with the rest of the coastline and joined them together, folding and bending his reality. Then he called up the plants and imagined marine life. His uncle Morris would have liked this.

When he was finished, Adam swam out to the last squat tower of basalt to inspect it and leapt the fifty feet or so to the top to get a good look at his handiwork. That was where Raven caught up to him.

"What do you think you're doing?!" the bird squawked as it landed behind him while Adam stood dripping wet in the middle of the flat surface.

The daemon obviously needed to take a chill. "I'm enjoying the view. What are you doing?"

"Trying to keep you from getting discovered and squashed like a bug!"

Adam frowned with puzzlement. "What do you mean? I'm on my own territory making rocks. I'm not bothering anyone," which was more than he could say for the bird.

"What did I warn you about building up your defenses and drawing attention to yourself? This . . . this is a fortification and a string of watchtowers!"

"It's rocks in the surf . . . my surf! My rocks! My cliffs! My shore!"

"Yes, on your border, that march right up to neutral space. Don't believe me, Adam? Make it night."

Adam felt like kicking Raven off his rock like a soccer ball, but he willed the darkness to descend with the speed of his thought. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, which was a little odd for him, but soon he understood what the emissary was so anxious about. Adam looked out over a field of stars that weren't just above him, but around and beneath him as well. The rock formation he was standing on felt solid and grounded, but it was actually floating like a piece of cosmic rubble in space. There was no water. There was no shore. The more he looked, the greater was his feeling of vertigo and unease.

Wide-eyed, Adam looked over at Raven. "I . . . I didn't know. I didn't sense this. I've never seen the cosmic planes this clearly before."

"Now do you understand? You're powerful, but you're also vulnerable out here near the void. I told you, not being seen is your best defense. You don't know yet how everything works. Come on. Just follow your rocks back and you'll be fine." Two more pillars in and the water and the shore were there again. Adam looked back and watched the strange stars soften and fade into a fog as his moon seemed to appear out of it. Raven waited for him as he leapt to the next rock.

Adam brought back the sunlight and sat down atop the rocky structure with the bird. "Should I take the last three down?"

Raven cocked its head to the side in thought. "I think you're better off to leave them as they are." He was too pissed to admit they'd be useful. Adam nodded, and the bird puffed up its chest and slowly exhaled. _Here it comes_ , Adam thought. He knew he deserved whatever words the little emissary threw at him. "They'll make a nice welcome mat. Now, do you think you could catch me up on what's happened to you since I last saw you?"

"I was sick, sort of. I was cold and fell unconscious. I . . . woke up and I was better." Adam squirmed a bit, "Then I wanted to make something big, so I made the rocks and the cliffs and the rest."

Raven walked closer and studied Adam, tilting its head and slowly stepping around the boy in a clockwise direction until it had made a complete circle. "Hold out your hand," it finally demanded. Adam held out his right hand with the palm up. The bird puffed out its chest as it inhaled and shook its head as it backed away.

"What's the matter? Is something wrong?" Adam didn't understand what the bird was doing, but he knew it was reading him somehow. He sniffed and there was the Gamma and the blood and pleasant smells he associated with himself as Hulk. The briny smell of the water and the stink that aquatic life and the land brought with it was there, too.

Raven stood still. "I'm overdue for a trip back home. For once, please, I want you to take my advice. You are your own worst enemy, Adam. It runs in your family. You've had the good fortune to be sheltered till now, but that's going to go away soon. Quit rushing things!"

"What do you mean? I don't understand."

"Stay home where you're safe. Quit pushing your boundaries until you understand your potential."

"What potential? You're being cryptic as hell."

"Just stay in your boundaries. You'll be safe here till I get back. Promise me."

"I'll be careful. Is that good enough?"

"Promise that you'll stay here."

"As long as I'm not Hulk, I'll be here. I promise. It's not like I can leave. Now stop worrying. You're scaring me!"

"Swear it!"

"I swear, I have no plans to step out of bounds."

"Good. You should stay scared."

"How long are you going to be gone?" The boy asked.

"As long as I'm required to be."

"I guess I'll see you when I see you then."

"Yes, I hope so." Raven truthfully didn't know if he'd be sent back or not. He wanted to return because he'd grown quite fond of Adam, in his way. The food and comradery didn't hurt, but an emissary didn't get to decide such things. Raven's attitude softened as it considered that possibility. Parts of his job just sucked! "No parties or revels without me, Adam Hulk Banner." Without looking back, Raven took to its wings and was gone after a few strong flaps.

Adam wasn't sure what to think. He could sense the sun had set in the real world, so he blinked himself to the house in Dayton, figuring that was home and the furthest from the edge. He was getting tired again and his skin was feeling tender. He appeared in the kitchen, still barefoot and wearing his swim trunks, so he walked upstairs to the hall bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was wild and a little sun bleached, but it was his reddened skin that made him pause. It looked like he'd been out all day in the sunshine without protection. He could feel the heat from the mild burn. Part of him was insisting this was his mind buying into an illusion that he needed to resist, but the rest of him wanted to play along, knowing it was a pleasant fantasy he could take some comfort from if he just pretend it was real. He resisted doing the latter because the disappointment would only be worse when the illusion inevitably went away. Still, if he had to choose, it wasn't in his nature to give in to despair. He growled at himself in the mirror. Fine, if it meant he'd feel better, he'd step in the shower and try to cool down.

That's where he was when he knew his brother had arrived downstairs in the kitchen. Adam shut off the water and imagined himself mostly dry and in a t-shirt and shorts. He hurried down the steps, around the corner, and into the kitchen. Bruce looked up from some of the drawings Adam had left on the table and adjusted his glasses on his nose. He smiled and opened his arms in time for Adam to knock into him like a puppy, eager to share affection, yet testing his brother a bit at the same time. Now his cheek was well above Bruce's belt buckle, something both of them noted.

Bruce measured about two inches with his fingers and sighed. "You must be feeling better, Big Guy. You had me really worried."

"Whatever it was, I'm okay now," Adam replied as he tilted his head back and looked straight up Bruce's chest and into his eyes.

Bruce smoothed the damp, sun-streaked curls back from his brother's face. "You've gotten some sun, and you smell a little different. Any clue why you got so cold?"

Adam wasn't sure if it would be productive to get into this conversation. "Weird dreams about having a dragon in my chest, but you know what that's like." Adam shrugged and didn't offer more.

"If that's how your mind makes sense out of it, then that's how it copes. We all have our personal vocabulary of symbols to make our narratives. Those are the stories we have to tell ourselves to keep moving along. I imagine Jung would back me up on that." Bruce tilted his head, "At least it sounds like yours is an entertaining one."

"It would be better if it made sense." Adam turned to the pile of pictures on the table and started sorting them. "How was the furball? I assume he wasn't too horrible since you didn't need me."

"Just as charming and sadistic as usual. You'll probably get to see him over the weekend." Bruce pulled out a sketch of Natasha on her Harley-Davidson LiveWire and wished he could take a picture of it to show her. Steve was a talented artist, but Adam had a genuine flare for color.

"Sounds lovely. How about Wanda?" Adam asked.

"Won't know till Nat gets back. You probably ought to listen in since plans are still up in the air and the clock is ticking."

Adam straightened the last bunch of pictures and added them to the pile. "I will if you find something to do that's more exciting than sorting laundry." Bruce looked over at Adam and bit his lower lip to keep from laughing then gazed at the ceiling, shaking his head. "Hey, you know I'm not into that," Adam growled as he guessed what was making his brother grin.

The scientist snorted, "Sorry, you walked right into it."

"Pervert. That's what's on your mind 90% of the time when she's out of town, and 75% when she's not."

"You are so . . . _young_."

"I'm realistic. Why dwell on . . . on . . . unnecessary things." Adam sat down at the table and started sorting through crayons and pencils. It was becoming a bit of a sore point with him since he'd known he would never share that experience with someone. He told himself he wasn't missing much despite its importance to Bruce.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"Look, it's not that I don't feel things, Bru. I really hate being a third wheel from the inside. I don't like being a voyeur."

Bruce got that, so he let it rest and finished thumbing through the stack of drawings and did a quick calculation as he replaced them on the end for the table. Natasha was in almost 62% of them. Not surprising when he considered how much of the outside world Adam saw through his his eyes and not his own.

Adam started replacing crayons in their slots, according to color. "Do you think we could deal with Wanda by ourselves or will other people need to be there?"

"I'm sure Nat will insist on being there. Maybe Vis will come along if he's available. Why?"

"I don't want this encounter documented."

"I'm not sure we can avoid that." Bruce watched Adam noticeably tense up and hunch his shoulders. "I'll do my best to ask."

"Thank you." Adam flexed his fingers and even his toes, trying to relax again. All this physical input was tiring. He wondered how he could turn it back.

Bruce sat down across the table from him and took off his glasses. "Hey, I've been kicking this idea around for a bit. If Vision is there, try to pay attention and see what you think of his form, the way he's designed."

Adam thought that was an odd request, even for Bruce. "Why? He's a beautifully designed, almost indestructible being. He's also an exceptionally nice person. What's not to like?"

Bruce frowned and stared at his hands for a moment, folding and unfolding his glasses before he looked up and made eye contact again. "I've not tried to properly articulate this before, so please bear with me. Helen has been on me to help upgrade the Cradle design once we're done with the Agreements, and I have some ideas that might be significant for you. Anyway, I think we could put some of your pluripotent cells to good use because we'll be adding an incubator tank for comprehensive cell replication and possibly cloning."

Adam started shaking his head, "I think I see where you're going. No, it took a fortune in stolen vibranium and a freaking alien artifact to power Vision's body up. I don't think repeating the process would be a good idea. Besides, how would I get from here inside your brain into some android hybrid body?"

Bruce held his free hand up. "Hear me out. This would be more like cloning with a few twists. We could start younger and not need to use any vibranium or maybe just a small amount to get the cellular bonding started."

"But, you'd need to find a way to filter out the Gamma before anything would grow predictably."

"No-no, that's the beauty of this. The Gamma is a built-in power source like a yolk sac for a fetus until the body could handle energy functions on its own. Then it would operate like an infant's actual body once it's ready to leave the Cradle. We could use the Gamma and then shut it down or separate it out like a stage peeling off a rocket or taking off a set of training wheels from a bicycle. Do you see? I think we could build you an organic body, and you'd be free of the Gamma. You'd be normal."

Adam looked at his brother. Bruce was leaning forward on the edge of his chair with excitement. "Okay, this sounds brilliant, but how would you get me out of you and into that body? First, I'm not JARVIS. I can't be downloaded and uploaded like a program. No offence, but JARVIS became something, no, _someone_ almost entirely different when it became Vision. I may not have a body, but I kind of like me the way I am now."

"I do, too, Adam. But . . ."

"Second, clones have rights. Nobody dies for me, especially when he doesn't have a choice in the matter."

"I agree. I wouldn't put you in that position. What I'm saying is I think Wanda might be able to help with the transfer of your consciousness if she's willing."

Adam looked at Bruce and thought he certainly seemed sincere. He knew his brother wasn't saying this as a joke or to be intentionally mean either. "Look, all of this is so theoretical I'm not going to reject any of it, but I'm not going to get my hopes up either, okay?"

"Alright, it's only a bunch of ideas, but I wanted to put it out there for you to mull over. I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you."

"It's okay, I know that. It just seems like a long way off. I don't mean to be a buzzkill, but I can't be in a constant state of excitement over something with all the what-ifs not even close to answered. For all we know, I could mess up this meeting with Wanda and that's all she wrote. I don't want to be stressing on that when I need to deal with what's already in our laps with Reconciliation almost here."

Bruce nodded, "I get it. Put this on the back burner to think about later, okay. No pressure."

"Have you talked to Helen or Nat or Tony about this yet?" Adam asked.

"No, I wanted to run it past you first. See what you thought." Bruce settled back in his chair.

Adam nodded, "'I'll admit it's got potential, and I'm interested."

"You don't need to get on the train just yet though."

"Let me get past what's right in front of us, and I promise I'll be onboard with my ticket ready to be punch when you're ready."

"When we're ready, I promise it will be an express with all my power, resources, and abilities behind it."

Adam nodded, "I know that you will. Thank you." He felt a little guilty that he couldn't muster the enthusiastic response his brother's theories deserved. He wanted to be hopeful because if anyone could pull such a thing off, it was Bruce. Adam had finished organizing everything on the table, so he got up and walked out the backdoor and into the yard. Bruce had stood up and followed him outside. "So, in other breaking news, I thought you might enjoy that I cheezed off Raven enough that it took off to report home."

"You're kidding. What happened?" Bruce didn't sound overly upset the daemon had left.

"It would be easier if I showed you. Think you're up for a little excursion to the edge? I'll just think us there."

Bruce turned his head and looked at Adam. "Okay, no boiling lava or yawning abyss, I hope."

"No, just some rocks and a beach and a cliff." Adam blinked and they were standing on the cliff at sunset and looking out to sea.

Bruce took a sharp breath and stepped back to steady himself. He looked around at the view, clearly impressed. "This is all new. It's a little Big Sur meets New Zealand's Rocky Shore with Syndrome's Secret Island thrown in there for interest."

"Fair enough, but this isn't the showstopper," Adam said with a grin. "Take my hand and close your eyes if it bothers you."

Bruce took his brother's hand, but he didn't close his eyes. The next instant, he stood blinking in the wind for a few moments before he realized they were on the furthest rock in the chain he'd been studying from the cliff. Bruce looked down at the surf and turned to look back at the shore. "Impressive. You made all of this didn't you?"

"Yah, now let me show you the view I didn't make." Adam moved the sunset forward into dusk and the faint moon became more prominent and the stars shown out.

Bruce turned around, gazing upward. "It's beautiful." He started looking for familiar constellations then realized what he knew was falling away into darkness and new celestial bodies were taking their pace. He couldn't hear the surf, so he looked down toward the horizon and his mouth dropped open in surprise. "You-you didn't make this, did you?" Adam grinned as he shook his head. "Where is this? We're on the celestial plane, aren't we?" Bruce asked, turning and marveling at the depth and clarity of the phenomena around them.

"Yes, it's a different dimension. Raven called it the Astral Plane. I'm still trying to work out the differences between it and the void. It seems to connect with a lot of other places."

"So, we're someplace between realities?"

"I'm pretty sure we're at the edge of where I live and the void between realities. The void isn't really visible, but clearly this place is."

Bruce had that maddening sense of déjà vu he got when he was close to remembering something his mind had blocked out. "This reminds me of . . . someplace, someplace we've been, Adam."

"Yes. I can remember parts of it, too. Stephen Strange was there. I picked flowers." Adam was having trouble with the big picture, but the details were coming back. "I was small. Too small to talk. The grass was red and the sky was like this." He looked up at Bruce who was staring at him, struggling to remember and hanging on his words. Adam scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to come up with more. His sunburned skin stung. "We need to go back now, Bruce." He took his brother's hand and turned back in the direction of the shore they couldn't see. Adam looked for the next rock back and couldn't see it. He reached out with his mind and didn't find it.

For a few heartbeats, Adam felt nothing but panic. Raven had told him to follow the rocks back . . . _Home!_ Adam thought of where he belonged, and the green fire instantly flared inside him. He shaped the raw power to his will and threw it out like a net till it caught where and when he wanted. The next moment, they were standing in the kitchen in Dayton.

"Th-that was efficient," Bruce stammered and grabbed a chair's back for support.

"Are you okay?" Adam cried. If he'd hurt Bruce, he'd never . . .

"Yah. You?" the man returned as he recovered from his vertigo.

"Never better." Adam was starting to shake as the seriousness of the situation sunk in.

"You scared me for a moment." Bruce straightened up and rubbed the back of his head.

"Sorry. I kind of scared me, too." Adam pulled out a chair and sat down. He hadn't done anything differently from the first time, so why was it harder to return from rock to rock?

Bruce sat down across from him. "I'd say, let's do it again, but I think there might be more serious consequences."

"It was a lot easier the first time with Raven. I could see the pillars and followed them back."

"Did Raven physically follow you out to the last pillar?"

Adam thought about it. "No, he was behind me."

"Maybe he was holding the door or the gate open for you?" Bruce suggested.

"Or he kept me tethered to home." Adam rubbed at his sore face and ran his hands back through his hair, which also hurt. He would figure this out, but he was going to have to think about it. "Crap!" he exclaimed and looked over a Bruce. "You know what really sucks? You're not going to remember any of this."

"Probably not," the physicist sighed. He didn't completely understand what had happened, but he certainly wanted to remember it. "At least I'll still have it while I'm here. The whole area was amazing. What are you going to call the bay and the pillars?"

Adam snorted. "Raven called it a 'welcome mat,' which I guess makes sense if the coast is 'the front door'."

Bruce rubbed the back of his head. "Why was Raven upset with you? There has to be a reason for the bird to have returned home to report in."

"It wants me to lay low and not attract attention. He was all, 'Promise me you'll stay home.' I'm not sure what that means, but I may have screwed it up already. What's new?" Adam was feeling a little done with the cryptic mysticism.

"We were on some kind of border, but we didn't leave the edge of what you made." Bruce shook his head. "Let's chalk it up to experience and move on."

Adam nodded; he completely agreed. "You're right. I'll stay away from 'The Welcome Mat' and 'The Pillars' and maybe off the freaking front porch while I'm at it."

"Avoid the lawn at all costs or some old geezer will come out and start yelling," Bruce joked before he became more serious. "Are you're doing okay though? I can't shake the feeling something shifted the other night."

"Something is different. I'm still kind of tired and not hitting on all cylinders yet," Adam admitted. "Still, part of me feels kind of weird in a good way and, I don't know, hopeful . . . more together, maybe?" He pushed himself away from the table and got up.

"You? Hopeful? Together?" Bruce joked. "You're something, alright. You made several square miles of coastline. Maybe you should give yourself a little break? Go rest so you can listen in later and be ready once we know when Wanda will arrive to talk. You need to be in a positive frame of mind."

"Okay, have fun doing that big load of black lingerie you've been saving up."

"Very funny. You know Nat wears a lot more colors than that," Bruce pointed out.

Adam snorted and waved him off. "I know who bought them, too," he said over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs. Adam pulled off his shoes and crawled into bed with his clothes on. He didn't hear Bruce leave because he was quickly asleep.

Bruce spent a while going back through the pile of drawings and pulled out one that was a copy of a picture he'd taken of himself and Natasha almost a year ago on a walk. It was spring and there was a cherry tree in bloom in the background. Adam had captured it perfectly. Natasha appeared relaxed and he thought he looked nervous and excitable. It was the day they'd visited the antique store, and he'd put down a proxy bid on a brooch that hadn't worked out. Bruce put the drawing back and headed outside for a walk that didn't go near the shore.

 **End Notes:** Hope you caught the major parallels between what happened to Bruce during his physical reset as well as what he suggests to Adam as a possible way to build him a body.  
Next, Wanda and Vis drive over to the lake, so Hulk and Wanda get some mutual understanding and a degree of closure.


	67. Chapter 67

**Summary:** This probably is the Wanda chapter you've been waiting for. Wanda and Vis drive to the lake and meet Bruce and Natasha there. Hatchets get buried but not exactly as expected. Bruce and Raven have a talk on the front porch. There's more talking until Adam has had enough of it.

 **Note:** My thanks to Autumn_Froste for the Beta duties and all those pushes and nudges. I hope this is as cathartic to read as it was to write. I want Wanda to be the standup character I know she can be, but hasn't yet been in the MCU. I hope she and Vis will find a little happiness. That said, I wish Hulk and Bruce would get the chance to make peace with her.

Chapter 67: Peace Offerings

Wanda had made the trip to Tony's lake and lodge before, so she wasn't that nervous about driving there. Thanks to a lot of pulled strings (Cough, cough! Maria Hill) her temporary permit was in her pocket, the luggage was in the Volvo's roomy trunk, and the best copilot she could ask for was in the seat beside her in their borrowed CX90. Vision had insisted on a crossover vehicle instead of a sports car, so they wouldn't attract attention and be pulled over. He had the stats to back up his point, too. The android had reserved this particular very white vehicle out of the compound's carpool. She reached over and squeezed his hand as Vis refreshed the navigation app on his phone again.

"Twelve more miles, and we'll need to exit onto State Road 215," Vision reminded her. She thought he made a good Siri. The android watched the wooded rural landscape pass by for a few minutes. "It appears the weather could hardly be more perfect. Do you plan on meeting Dr. Banner right away or should I unload the luggage first?"

Wanda smiled and shrugged, "I only spoke with him briefly, but Bruce said they would meet us at the lodge. I would like to get things over with while it's just the four of us there this afternoon."

"I would expect Bruce to feel the same way," Vision mused. He had no doubt Hulk would agree.

Wanda signaled and turned right onto the two-lane state road and drove north. Now that they were off the highway, Wanda turned off the air conditioning and lowered the widows. She also turned up the volume on the acoustic guitar music she'd downloaded so it could compete with the outside noise. "I keep having to remind myself not to speed because I want to get this over with."

Vision smiled. "You are a driven person once your mind is made up."

"Was that a pun?" she asked incredulously.

He laughed, "I guess it is."

They were getting close, so Wanda thought she'd better answer to one more person while they still had privacy. "Vis, I've never told you exactly what happened before the incident in Johannesburg, South Africa."

"That's all right. You don't have to if you don't want to do so. It won't change my feelings about you, Wanda."

"I think I do need to tell you. This is not pretty, but I need you to know the truth, just in the case something happens. I don't think there will be an issue, but I don't want you to intervene unless I'm the one endangering someone."

"All right," he said with a nod as he reached over and squeezed her free hand. Wanda took a deep breath and told him every painful detail of her attack on Bruce and Hulk and what she and Pietro had done. Vision sat quietly and listened through to the end of her account. He didn't say anything for a few minutes.

"Well? Do you understand now why I've not been able to face him?" she finally asked.

"Yes, but I also know you were in pain just like Ultron and under not just his influence but the Mind Stone's as well." He held up his hand to stop her protest and touched the gem in his forehead. "I cannot read the depths to which this device, this entity might have influenced you, but it has had a role in how we were both created or altered. It seeks to dominate others and when it cannot, it settles with reaching an equilibrium or a form of detente. That is in its nature, so I have no doubt it warped you and your brother's thinking and influenced you to act as you did, Wanda."

Wanda frowned then gave Vis a quick glance, "I wish I could be as sure of that as you, my dear." She slowed down as they approached an unmarked road and turned onto it. In less than 100 yards, they arrived at an automated gate and were scanned before the sleek metal wall in front of them lowered and allowed them to pass. When they arrived at the lodge ten minutes later, Bruce was standing in front of the main building and welcomed them in once their vehicle was parked. He was wearing an apron over a pair or gray pants and a dark blue pullover shirt. Natasha wasn't with him.

"Hey, you two! Good to see you both. Was the drive okay?" the physicist asked as he hugged each of them briefly in turn.

"It was actually quite enjoyable and without incident," Vision replied.

Wanda laughed, "I didn't run over anything or get pulled over, so the drive and the company were quite enjoyable, yes."

Bruce nodded in the direction of the large front doors, "Nat's taking a nap in our room, so I started prepping dinner for later. It's something to do with my hands." He led them into the lobby and then through the large, open living room to the kitchen area along the back wall.

Wanda inhaled deeply, "Oh my gosh, what are you cooking? It smells wonderful."

Bruce grinned, "Vis mentioned you like chicken paprikash. I've made it before and thought you might enjoy it for dinner later. You can tell me if I got the right kinds of paprika and noodles." He was surprised when she hugged him again, and Vis gave Bruce a pleased thumbs up.

Wanda stepped back with a big smile still on her face. "It's different in every region, but this smells like home to me. Thank you, Bruce!"

"Oh, no trouble! I was glad to fix it again."

"Where did you learn to make it? You don't have a Slavic or Hungarian grandma, do you?"

"A friend in Chicago, actually, but I have bummed around the middle of Europe a few times. I'll tell you about some misadventures later, maybe with dessert."

"I would love that!" she said.

For a few moments, all three were silently smiling. They looked at each other, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable now that they needed to get down to business. "Why don't you two get settled. Tony said you could take the suite in the east wing. I'll go wake up Nat and get prepared. There's a little clearing about a quarter mile down the hiking trail that runs around the lake. It'll give us plenty of room."

"I know which one you mean," Wanda said. "That sounds like it will work. I want Hulk to be as comfortable as possible."

Bruce nodded, "We'll see you there in a half an hour." He turned the heat on the stove down then changed his mind and turned it off. Better safe than burned. He hung up his apron and went to wake up Natasha. He was tempted to just let her sleep, but he valued his life more. She'd never forgive him if he left her napping, especially if something went wrong and she wasn't there. The suite was spacious and comfortable with huge windows that looked out on the same garden as the master suite. He'd flipped the opacity switch to dim the room, but Natasha would have slept, no matter how bright or dark it was. He sat down beside her on the couch and rubbed her feet until she slowly woke up.

"Mmm, nice. Are they here?" Natasha asked as she stretched her arms and smoothly rolled into a sitting position.

"We have about 20 to 25 minutes before we meet them in the little clearing. I already have water and a couple of blankets for sitting on packed and ready to go."

She stood up and took a quick look at herself in the mirror. She checked her handgun and a couple of concealed blades. Bruce rolled his eyes. "Hey, I'm not packing more than my absolute basics." She didn't say anything about the case of darts loaded with large-animal tranquilizer in her side pocket. She was pretty sure an eighth dose could take Wanda down, but you never knew when such things might come in handy. She took a quick drink of water from the bathroom sink with her hands and splashed her face before drying off on a towel. "Let's go. I'm sure Hulk would like to acclimatize for a few minutes."

Bruce grabbed his pack and they were quickly down the path and headed to the clearing. The sun was warm and the grass in the clearing was long, but there was a nice level spot in the middle for the blankets. Before he could sit down, Natasha grabbed Bruce around the waist. "No matter what happens, I love you and the Big Guy. I'll stay back, but I'm right here for both of you."

"Thanks, from both of us. I can feel he's ready. We'll be fine." Bruce took off his shoes, pulled his shirt over his head, and sat down in the middle of one blanket in a modified lotus position. He could feel Hulk was impatient and opened himself up.

Adam had kept busy since he woke up that morning, and now it felt like he'd been waiting for hours since Bruce had done his best to communicate that Nat and he were at the lodge. Adam had thought about going to his replica of the lake property, but he decided he'd rather have something to do and ended up at the apartment playing on the piano. He was done with all the exercises and etudes he could stand in half an hour, so he started playing songs by ear. Somehow, he got on a theme and pecked out "Witchy Woman" and a little bit of "Rhiannon" before he settled on "I Put a Spell on You," and earnestly worked out the chords. It kept him from going nuts while he waited.

Then Adam felt a tug, so he quit playing and sat down on the couch. He could sense Bruce as if he was at the other end of a tunnel, so he tried to move toward him. To his surprise, the energy in his core flared, and he was immediately thrust past his brother and suddenly in control of his body. Adam had mentally grabbed at Bruce, trying to slow things down, but they barely made contact. In a panic, Bruce tried to push every appropriate skill possible at him. All Adam could compare it to was failing a D&D dexterity check with a one. Something he did get was the full pain of the transformation, so he was doubled over and gasping on his side when the pain subsided enough to open his eyes.

Natasha was about twelve feet away and kneeling, so she'd be in his line of sight. Her voice wavered a bit, "Hey, Big Guy, tell me what's going on."

Adam groaned and tried to sit up. This one had really hurt, but his head was clearing. "Not good," he said, but it came out as a rumbling, "Nnnn guuug." He shook his head and then held it in his hands. This could not be happening. Not like this! Adam looked at Natasha helplessly. "N-n-ng whoodz," he tried to explain. Out of frustration he signed "no" and "speak" with his right hand. He didn't like using sign, but that's how desperate he was. It was like the connections between his brain and his mouth, tongue, lips, and even his throat had been slowed and numbed more than a dental anesthetic could.

Natasha's heart had dropped when Bruce had convulsed like someone had struck him between his shoulder blades. His head had snapped backward, and his eyes were wide with fear as he fell on his left side. All she could do was watch helplessly and urge him to relax and breathe. His frame and musculature expanded quickly, and she stood clear of him until the massive green body had quit shaking and twitching.

When Hulk sat up, but couldn't talk, they both knew something had gone seriously wrong with the transition. She held her hand out to him with her palm facing him. "It's alright, Big Guy. We knew this could happen." When he signed, "No speak," she had a better idea of what they had to work with. He'd stared back at her helplessly then squeezed his eyes shut and balled up his fists. She held her breath, expecting an outburst, but instead he'd huffed out a sigh and relaxed a bit.

"Hey, it's not optimal, but you're you. I can tell you're under control." He opened his eyes and nodded. She held her hand up to him again, and he held up his right palm for her to touch. She calmly stepped forward and touched his palm with hers. He opened his arms in a signal it was safe to be in his space, so she did the same and hugged him around his thickly muscled neck. "We're going to get through this, okay? Wanda is really motivated to make things right."

Adam moaned in response. He had wanted to communicate, to prove he was more than a beast that could be abused because he was less than human. Of course, it was a bit ironic that he'd resisted learning more than the rudiments of ASL because he could have really used it now. Gorillas knew more than he did. Natasha stepped back so she could see him better, and he signed, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said as she signed back. "I'll translate as much as I can. I know you prefer not to sign, but you'll manage it just fine."

He signed, "Thank you," again and shook his head. There wasn't going to be much to translate. Adam had only learned about 60 or so relevant words. He wasn't sure what had gone wrong, but Bruce felt unusually distant. Everything had happened very fast during the transition, like it had been sped up by whatever had been reset in him. He probably should have considered that might happen, but hindsight was always 20/20. Neither of them had anticipated this serious of a failure. Well, to be honest, Natasha was right, things could have been much worse.

Nat was staring at him intently, trying to read his features as his thoughts and emotions played across his large verdant face. She'd noticed his eyes were a deep green today with no hint of Bruce's brown in their depths, and she made note of it. "I hate to bring this up, Big Guy, but you might want to consider letting Wanda get a read, a real mental read on you."

Adam snorted and rolled his eyes. He held up his hand with the fingers out and the middle finger down and touched it to his chin before flicking his hand away to sign, "Good luck!" He shook his head dismissively. As much as he resisted signing, Adam did not want the witch in his head, but as the idea sunk in, he considered it. Maybe if he kept her corralled close to the edge? She'd been very close to the beach before, and Raven didn't think she'd wander back if their issues were settled. He thought about the least vulnerable spots and those were on the two northern beaches. After what had happened at the Pillars, he didn't want to return there until he understood it. That left the rocky beach right at the gate, which was the only entry to everything else. He wished he could talk to Raven or Bruce to strategize about this, but that wasn't in the cards, at least not in the next five minutes. He made up his mind.

Adam looked up from staring at his hands to make eye contact with Natasha and took a deep breath before signing "OK". He rubbed his flattened right hand on his chest in a circle for "please," placed his hands palms together for "ask," and pointed down the path for "her."

Natasha grinned, "Of course I'll ask her."

He signed, "Thank you." He sincerely hoped he and Bruce wouldn't regret it.

"It's really very brave of you to try this," Natasha told him. "Wanda swore off using her psychic abilities, but I think she'll agree to try it if we ask her and explain what happened." He nodded and pulled his knees up and hugged his shins. "You know, you look a lot like Bruce when you do that." He smiled because he'd quit taking it personally when people compared him to Bruce; unless it was Tony or Thor, then all bets were off. That gave him an idea.

He cleared the grass off the ground next to him and smoothed the bare dirt over. This would have worked better on the sandy beach, but he wrote with his finger, "BROTHERS," in the loose soil. Natasha moved to stand by his right shoulder, and she laughed when she read it. He tilted his chin down and gave her a small shy smile. "No shit, you're brothers. Did he teach you that Kubrick stare or did you teach it to him?" No one would believe her, but Nat knew one thing the two Banners had in common was they could both be charming and dangerous, yet still be flirts.

Adam gave her a very self-satisfied look and tapped his chest first and then pointed away for Bruce." Nat chuckled, "You are clearly the one with the ego." Adam shrugged dramatically with his shoulders and wiped his dirt slate smooth then wrote, "I AM CUTE ONE." That really got her laughing. "Alright, I'll give you that."

He got a little more serious again and pointed his index finger at his lips and flicked it to point toward her for "truth." Natasha quit laughing and nodded her head, "Yes, you are that and more." He looked back down at his hands, feeling a little shy and a little sad once more. Adam brushed the dirt off his hands and leaned over to wipe them in the grass, resisting the habit of cleaning them on his pants since he was trying to be a civilized adult in this monstrous body.

Presently, they heard Wanda and Vis approaching on the trail, so Adam straightened up and did his best not to look too intimidating. He relaxed his features, reminding himself that smiling didn't generally help because it looked like he could eat someone . . . at least that's what Clint had told him. Adam was pretty sure that was true.

Wanda and Vision were finishing a conversation as they entered the clearing, but Natasha knew they were just as nervous as Hulk despite their smiles. Wanda was carrying a shopping bag and Vision had on a backpack. They were both in shorts and t-shirts and looked like they were going on a picnic.

"Hey, guys," Natasha greeted them. Adam didn't move; he concentrated on keeping his breathing even and not doing anything too suddenly.

"Hi, Hulk," Wanda said tentatively as she stopped about halfway into the clearing. "Thank you for agreeing to talk with me." Adam nodded and offered his hand to her palm out. Wanda slowly approached and touched his hand before stepping back.

Vision stepped forward and touched Adam's hand as well. "It's good to see you again, friend." Seeing Vision out of his uniform did make Adam smile because the red-skinned android was wearing cargo shorts and sneakers. Adam had to think of the best way to sign what he wanted to say, and he had to use two hands for both words.

Natasha laughed and translated, "Hulk says you have 'nice pants,' Vis."

Vision was a bit puzzled at first, "Thank you, Hulk. Uh, I like your pants, too." Adam tilted his head and gave the sign for "Thanks," which had an obvious enough meaning.

"I guess I should let you know what's going on," Natasha began. "We'd all been hoping the transition from Bruce to Hulk would be smooth, and Bruce could hand him over all his speech skills. Unfortunately, it's never a guarantee and this time it was a rough one."

"You seem to be signing okay. Will that work?" Wanda asked.

Adam shook his head and Nat explained, "He only has a small sign vocabulary, and I think he'd like to have privacy, right?" Adam looked at Natasha and nodded again and signed "ask" and pointed to Wanda. "He's willing to let you inside if you're willing to try, Wanda."

The request took the Magic User aback for a moment. "You're willing to do this, Hulk? After . . . after what happened? After what I did?"

Adam nodded and signed, "Please." He looked at Natasha and signed "promise," "no," and "harm." That was as sophisticated as his signing got.

Natasha translated but looked puzzled: "Promise no harm . . . ? Are you promising not to do Wanda harm or asking that she not harm you?"

Adam bit back his sarcasm and signed, "Both." That one was difficult to make with his large hands. He was on the verge of getting frustrated. He wasn't sure which was worse, being stuck signing with his big green paws or trying to speak with his uncooperative disconnected tongue. At least he could still think over the chronic pain.

Natasha nodded and translated, "Both. It's a mutual thing."

"Please," he signed and tried to pronounce it, but it came out, "P-pleess."

"Of course," Wanda said. "I will try." She looked at Vis who nodded encouragingly. "First, I wanted to give you something I made for you. It's not much, but I wanted this to be a peace offering." She opened up the top of the shopping bag she'd brought and pulled out something greenish gold that was made out of fabric. It unfolded into a stuffed toy—not an animal, but a simple rag doll with a shock of hair like a Mohawk and black buttons for eyes. "Bruce sent me some pictures a few weeks ago, and I made a pattern. Does it look right to you?"

She held it up and placed it in Adam's hand. It was larger than the original, but his hand still dwarfed it. He signed, "Thanks!" with is free hand. It did look very close to the original, and she'd put time and care into the details. He glanced over at Natasha who seemed to be as surprised and touched as he was. Now, he really wished he had words to explain how he felt and what this was. He didn't know how to sign for "Guardian," so he'd have to hope Bruce explained it.

"Wow! This is so sweet, Wanda. I didn't know you could sew," Natasha said admiringly. Adam carefully handed the rag doll to her, so she could have a closer look and keep it safe.

"I like to do things with my hands and my grandmother was a seamstress. I asked Bruce what you might enjoy, and he said this was something you two shared."

"He also said you'd recognize its significance," Vision added. He had his head cocked to the side and had been looking back and forth between Adam and the soft greenish doll, comparing the two.

Adam nodded his head in agreement and smiled as graciously as he knew how. He couldn't think of how to explain that he and the doll had the same name, but maybe that was just as well. At least he didn't have a dog for a namesake. He did remember how to sign he liked it, so he did that and also "happy." Nat translated for him. Those words seemed to please Wanda.

"I guess we should get started then," Wanda said. Natasha took the bag and placed the doll back in it and laid it aside on one of the blankets. "May I get closer?" the brunette asked Adam. He opened his arms to indicate he was willing and ready. Wanda did the same and stepped nearer to him. "I'm going to place my hand on your chest. Try to relax. I'm going to see how close we can get without spelled magic."

Adam nodded and took deep, even breaths. Wanda had a cinnamon and honey smell, and he thought of wild flowers in the sun. He hoped she'd avoid using her Chaos Magic entirely, but he wasn't sure how her powers worked. Bruce had taken two full blasts to the chest and not Hulked out, so Adam figured they had some natural resistance. If he had any agency or influence, Adam planned to direct her to the rocky beach. The moment she touched him, something sprang to life as if a primal instinct was answering a challenge and ready to offer resistance. He calmed it and kept the impulse under control, but Wanda jumped and removed her hand like she'd placed it on a hot stove.

They both looked at each other with surprise. "I didn't realize you have a strong predisposition for magic," she noted. This surprised her because she thought she knew him after having invaded his mind during the attack. Maybe it was new or dormant at that time, or perhaps the magic had been hidden quite deep. "I think we're compatible enough to do this on our own—no spells. I'm going to sit down in front of you, and we can give it a try." Adam gave her a nod, settled into a meditative lotus position, and then closed his eyes once Wanda appeared to have gotten comfortable on the blanket. "If you lead me, I will follow you," she told him.

Adam concentrated on finding his rocky beach, and he was there in his own familiar form again. He was the same preteen as she'd seen before, but this time he was wearing a blue button-down shirt over a gray t-shirt, jeans, and loafers, doing a bit of a Bruce impersonation without the lab coat. The boy turned to look around for his visitor. "Wanda? I'm here." He reached out his senses and felt her home in and emerge. She stepped out of a blurred area close by and coalesced into her astral form. This time she looked much more solid and defined than when she'd dreamwalked. He could feel that he was doing some of it himself, forming a construct framework for her to inhabit without him even thinking about it. There were a couple of large rocks between them, so they cautiously met in the middle, looking at each other. He knew she was sizing him up, and he wanted her to register him accurately. He knew he didn't appear intimidating—that was mostly why he chose it, but she would know he was much more underneath. "Hi, Wanda. I'm . . ."

"Hulk?!" the brunette looked thoroughly shocked. He was so young, but the eyes were the same. She _had_ met him, but not until long after the attack.

Adam grinned when he saw her confusion melt into sudden recognition as it registered on her face. He felt a little petty, but he'd wanted her to have this epiphany—a moment of shock that would turn her understanding of what she thought she knew about him and Bruce upside down. Maybe this was going to be worth some of his loss of privacy. "I guess you were expecting the big green me?"

Wanda was covering her mouth with her right hand and staring at him. The Magic User simply took in his presence for several long moments. In a way, she was relieved to connect these two dissimilar versions of him, but knowing this was exactly whom she'd wronged was more disturbing in retrospect. "How? I mean, yes. I know you. I didn't just dream you."

Good, she did remember. He kept the rocks between them, but he came nearer so she could get a good look at him close up. Adam wanted her to understand who he was. "Yes, you visited very close to here in your sleep only a few nights ago. I'm sorry, but I'm not really comfortable letting you further inside than here. I could make something more comfortable than the rocks though." He imagined two wicker chairs with soft cushions for them to replace the boulders.

Wanda jumped slightly, but she took the switch to cozier seats in stride. She shifted her attention to their environment and looked around them more closely, using all her senses to see beneath and beyond the surface. What seemed to be a natural shoreline was safe enough as far as she could detect, but it was clearly a waiting room or a doorstep for someplace much, much bigger. She didn't have a great deal of experience with other dimensions, but this place had to be more than just an imagined spot in someone's mind. She wondered how he'd led her here if it wasn't in Bruce's mind. She turned her attention back to the boy who was more than what he appeared in front of her. He seemed to be rather amused with her puzzlement though not in a mean way. "Thank you. This looks very pleasant. I'm alright if we talk here," she assured him.

"Good. Thank you for agreeing to do this. I meant what I tried to say: I won't harm you." That seemed rather odd coming out of someone who looked this young.

"I trust you. Thank you for trusting me enough to let me inside. I know this wasn't easy for you."

"I'll admit I don't feel completely comfortable, but if we're going to be working together, I think these issues have to be addressed." She nodded in agreement. "I have some things I need to say while I can." Adam sat down in the chair nearest to him, and Wanda sat down opposite him about five feet away. She couldn't stop staring at him, and the scrutiny was starting to make Adam feel uneasy. "Would you be more comfortable if I looked different?"

"No, sorry. I'm just not used to thinking of you being this way—younger and, er, smaller." She knew he looked like Bruce must have thirty years ago. Everything but the eyes; those were uniquely his. She couldn't help looking for the Hulk in his features and gestures as well, but she did her best to focus on him in the present. "Please, go ahead."

"First, thank you for the doll. It's very thoughtful. I can tell you worked hard to get it just right. You pretty much nailed how I remember him." She nodded and smiled at his acknowledgment. Now, everything was going to get hard. Adam wrung his hands, "That doesn't make what I need to say any easier or less painful, but I still have to say it so we can all move on. I'm pretty sure what you and your brother did to Bruce and me wasn't entirely your choice, but you need to understand what you did had horrible and lasting consequences." Adam realized he'd started to clench his hands into fists and made himself relax. He really wasn't sure what would happen here if he lost his temper. The boy jammed his hands in his pockets since he didn't have glasses to keep them busy. He looked at Wanda and noticed she was nervously turning the rings on her fingers.

Adam looked back up and made steady eye contact with Wanda as he continued. "I remember everything the two of you did to Bruce. I remember everything you did to bring me out." Wanda wrung her hands and looked away uncomfortably. Truthfully, she'd hoped he couldn't remember the details of the attack. "I can't recall half of what I did after that, but I know I killed and terrorized people in Johannesburg." Adam looked down at his hands, trying to get them to relax as he continued. "In the past, I know I was responsible for killing and injuring people when Bruce and I were lost and in pain, but I thought those circumstances were behind us. I was gaining control of myself and not just being suppressed or imprisoned. Then, you pulled me out of myself and left just the madness, anger, and fear."

"I-I know," Wanda stammered. As he'd said, it wasn't easy to hear and it was extremely painful to remember now for her, too.

"Please, let me finish. I'll probably never be able to say this again." He took a deep breath, "You violated me. Do you understand what that feels like?" She wasn't sure, so she said nothing. "One of the reasons Bruce is so . . . fragile and angry is the abuse he survived before he was the age I look now. That doll's name is Guardian because I'm supposed to keep Bruce safe. You took that from me . . . from him. That's why I made us leave on the Quinjet. If I couldn't keep us safe from you, I wanted to keep everyone safe from us." Adam hugged his middle, leaning forward and staring at his feet now. He thought he'd feel better after he said this to her, but it all felt so raw and bloody. He wanted to stand up and pace, just move around, but Adam willed himself to stay still. His nails were digging into his palms, so he slowly unclenched his fingers one at a time.

Wanda looked at the boy in front of her, and she felt like her heart was in her shoes. "Hulk, if I could take back what happened that day, I would. I know I am responsible for your pain and other's. I used you to accomplish my goals. The goals were wrong. I was wrong. I could not see that at the time. I only saw you as . . ."

"As what? An animal? A weapon?" he asked, unable to hold some of the bitterness he felt back. He hated to be seen as less than a person, but he'd accepted that as his lot for most of his existence.

"As a means to an end," she tried to explain. "I didn't know who or what you were. I just thought I could set you off like a bomb. Obviously, we didn't think that through." She looked down at her hands. "I have tried to make things right, Hulk. I know I have waited too long to reach out to you. Everything you have said is true. What we did, Pietro and I thought was for the best of reasons. Stark and the Avengers had to fall. We learned better; otherwise, we would not have joined you to fight Ultron. Your anger and hurt and sorrow are justified."

"Tell me why you hurt us when you could have walked away. Why did you send me off to murder and destroy innocent people in Johannesburg?"

Wanda shook her head, "I wish I understood why. We were . . . I was focused on revenge. To take you down and control you was something powerful I wanted to do. You were the biggest, and you and Bruce turned out to be the toughest. I knew what I did to Bruce would hurt Stark in a personal way. He would feel responsible for all of it. I was so drunk on my own power that I didn't think through the consequences. I perpetuated what I blamed on the Avengers." Her voice had been fairly steady up till then, but now Wanda wept. "I am sorry for all the pain I've caused you and Bruce and everyone else. No one can completely fix things; but, if it's possible, I want to make them closer to right with you."

Adam nodded. He thought she seemed sincere, like she wouldn't make the same mistake again. That was mostly what he wanted to hear from her. "Thank you, Wanda." He tried to smile. It wasn't a great attempt, but he'd eventually do better. "I won't forget, but I'm willing to let this rest."

"Thank you," she whispered with relief. "I know neither of us will ever forget what happened. We are marked by it, but I hope we will be able move on from here."

"Me, too." He wasn't sure if he felt better, but Adam had had enough of being isolated and constrained. "I do want to say I'm sorry about what happened to your brother. I didn't get a chance to know him, but Clint's family certainly appreciate what Pietro did for him. For that I'm grateful."

Wanda nodded, "Yes, I miss him every day." She had been moving some of the pebbles and shells around with her foot. "If it's alright, I wanted to ask you about something you said last time when we met over the water. You said your brother—I assume that is Bruce—was lost for a while. What did you mean?''

Adam wasn't sure how much he wanted to share with her about Bruce's inner workings. "It's kind of difficult to explain. Do you remember having to force your way through barriers inside him to get to me?"

"Yes, it was like storming a fortress." Bruce's had by far been the hardest human mind to crack she'd encountered.

Adam snorted, "I thought I was in a cage or cell in a dungeon, so that's rather appropriate. After the accident, Bruce didn't remember me. He kept me locked away for about ten years until just after the Battle of Sokovia when we met Doctor Strange."

Wanda looked at him with surprise. "I never thought of where you are when you aren't Hulked out. I . . . so you have always been there and just come out when you are big and green. The rest of the time you are here?" she asked.

"Yes, unless I manifest in reality, I'm here in Bruce's head. This is where I've always been."

"Are you using a metaphor or is it really true?" she asked him.

Adam shrugged, "True . . . as far as I know."

She looked at him skeptically. "This place feels very _real_ to me."

"I've put a lot of work into it. I . . . well, I have a lot of time on my hands to make it as close to the real world as possible." If he didn't feel awkward before, he certainly did now.

Wanda shook her head. "Although I would not have believed it before, now I'm sure you are a magic user of some sort. You've manipulated energies and put your talents to work here. Illusions are something I don't much dabble in any longer, but I do know them when I experience them. I think this environment is more than simple illusions." She'd slipped off her ballerina flats and seemed to be enjoying the feel of the warm stones and sand on her toes. "I can use all of my senses here and the sensations are not only what I expect to feel. If this were all just something out of my head, there would not be anything new or unique or surprising."

Adam nodded slowly. He wasn't certain if what he did was magic or not, but he understood what she was saying. He'd always had a talent for mimicking environments in meticulous detail when he made his locations, so he was confident his constructs could stand up to close scrutiny. "I get that. It's like we all have our box of crayons, so those are the palate of colors we experience the world with. If something is real, it can surprise us with a color that's not been in the box. It expands our range of colors because it is new to us." Adam rather enjoyed this metaphor and concept, but he wasn't sure that he agreed with her conclusions.

Of a sudden, he realized he was feeling really torn. On the one hand, he didn't want her in his or Bruce's business; on the other hand, he was dying to have a conversation with someone who might understand his experiences and answer some of his questions without dangling information just out of his reach.

She raised her eyebrows and returned his measured nod. "I think you should ask Strange about this."

Adam harrumphed and signed, "Good luck!" He'd been waiting and hoping for a visit from Earth's Sorcerer Supreme for weeks . . . no, months now. So many things had happened since May. "I think he's too busy to bother with me. It's not like I'm going anywhere by myself either, so I'm not one of his priorities." Adam dug the toe of his shoe into the gravelly mix beneath his feet.

"He's only checked in with me a few times, but I have trained with Master Jimaine." It had been more like a boot camp to assess her abilities and make sure her powers were under control, but she'd enjoyed the challenge and the confidence it had given her. Wanda was sure someone from the Kamar-Taj watched her between visits from her mentor. She wasn't certain if Hulk could even be monitored here, but as long as Strange knew about him, surely, they had some idea of his potential? The place practically hummed with its own magic. Her instincts told her there was much more here just beyond what she could see and feel. The only thing she could confirm was neither chaos nor dark magic seemed to be at play. This was something completely new to her, and it felt very different from her own.

Adam bent down and picked up a small flat stone and played with it like a coin, rolling it across his knuckles. "Please don't take this the wrong way. I know I'm frightening, not just because I'm a very large, dangerous-looking 'freak,' but also because of my past behavior and the real potential for disaster I represent." He looked up at her from beneath his brow with those intense green eyes, "I imagine you face some of the same fearful reactions I do when you deal with other people."

Hearing this come out of a child seemed so odd, but he had a point, they were alike in this way. "I do know what you mean. It's pretty much a zero-sum game for me. I can't do much about it besides work hard and hope they get over their fears. I can only control my own behavior."

Adam picked up a slightly larger flat stone and stood up to stretch. He was tired of sitting, so he walked closer to the water and skipped the stone across the relatively still surface of the protected cove. "You're one of the few people who has ever seen me as someone separate from Hulk. Thank you for trusting me enough to come here."

Wanda had followed him to the water's edge. "The honor has been mine," the young woman said with a small smile.

Adam looked up at her and couldn't help but laugh. "I'm glad you feel that way, but this was pretty . . . uh, _painful_ , at least from my end."

Wanda couldn't keep from laughing either. This had been one of the most dreaded encounters she'd ever faced. "Absolutely torturous! But necessary."

"I'm glad we both have kind of a weird sense of humor," Adam noted with a grin.

Now, she thought she recognized something of his large green self in the child as they both relaxed a bit. "We monsters have to stick with each other, Hulk."

In Adam's opinion, that was true for verdant goblins and ruby-eyed witches who had to get along to get what they both wanted. He thought about picking up another stone to throw, but he decided to leave it in place. "I suppose we should be getting back before Vis and Nat get concerned. I'm sure Bruce is worried already."

Wanda chuckled, "He does fret a good deal." She pulled her shoes back on and took one last good look around. "I hope one day you will trust me enough to show me more, my friend."

Adam cocked an eyebrow and managed a more relaxed smile than before. He held out his hand to her and a small spark passed between them like static electricity, except it didn't shock or hurt them. In fact, it only teased across both their palms as if that was all they both needed to find an equilibrium. "That's . . . kind of weird. Does that happened to you often?" he asked since he could number the people he'd made contact with on three fingers if Raven counted.

Wanda was examining her hand. The sparks had danced together green and red across her palm before disappearing. "No, I've not experienced this before. May I check something?"

"Go ahead," he offered.

"I need to see your hand again," she told him and took his wrist between her fingers to check for a pulse when he offered it.

"Well?" he queried.

"It's good. Here, check mine," she offered, and he took the wrist she held up and felt her pulse.

"Feels strong," he said once he located it. "It seems pretty normal."

Wanda raised an eyebrow, "So does yours."

"Were you expecting something else?"

"Frankly, yes. I thought we'd both be without one here."

"I thought we'd both have one," Adam returned. Wanda sniffed and shook her head. "My place, my rules?" Adam suggested.

"Maybe? I'll have to think about it."

"Well, while you're pondering that, please think about joining us for the Reconciliation Meeting. It might put some of what happened to us into perspective. You would probably sleep a little better, too." He really hoped she'd do it and quit dreamwalking.

"Alright."

"So, you'll go?"

"I'll think about it." She noted he had looked absolutely hopeful for a moment. Wanda was close, but she wouldn't commit until she was absolutely sure she could take the scrutiny on such a public stage.

Adam gave her a perplexed look. "Just so you know, I'm not sure how well or how poorly I'll be able to communicate, but I intend to tell my own story . . . all of it."

"You should do it. I trust you to tell the truth."

"But you should tell your side of what happened, Wanda. I can't do that for you."

"I know this, Hulk, and I will be thinking about it."

"Alright," he said before he dropped a stone he didn't remember picking up. "Bruce never remembers me, so you may not retain much of this in your memories. I won't take it personally if you don't."

"I won't forget you. I remembered you from my dreams."

"Then I'd appreciate it if you'd keep the details of this visit in confidence or at least on a need-to-know basis. A lot of people don't like to be around me already and knowing who's inside would just confuse things."

"Of course. I will do my best to be worthy of your trust, Hulk." Wanda hoped he could see she was sincere.

"Then talk to me in the real world and not in our dreams." Adam grinned mischievously and then signed, "Good luck!" With that, he gave her a mental push back to her body, and she started to fade. He told himself it would be better this way.

* * *

Utterly enthralled, Bruce had been staring up at a sky full of strange stars and celestial bodies for about thirty minutes. He'd almost overloaded when Adam showed him the view from the furthest pillar before because of all the visual stimuli. Upon finding himself back in this nexus, he'd almost panicked, but after he reasoned out that he'd be returned via the next transformation, he'd calmed down and decided to make the most of the opportunity and take in as much as his brain could hold for as long as it would hold the information. In all likelihood, he'd not remember it for long, but he might as well enjoy as much of the show around him as he could. Bruce had lain down on his back to avoid the vertigo and started mapping out the phenomenon he could classify. He was up to an even two dozen when he sensed he wasn't alone.

"Well, look what the Hulk dragged in!" Squawked a harsh avian voice.

Bruce sat up and stared at the shiny black bird as it made a neat circle and landed opposite him on the rock platform. "Raven, I presume," Bruce said, doing his best to remain neutral. He knew this was Adam's only friend, but the physicist was highly suspicious of the emissary's motives.

"I don't believe we've been formally introduced, but that's what I'm called at the moment. Good to meet you Robert Bruce Banner, brother of Adam, son of Brian and Rebecca. Did you forget your keys or are you just taking a nap on the doormat?"

At least it didn't sound like Eddie Haskell to Bruce. "I ended up here when Adam took over, so I'm just waiting for him to be done. Can't beat the view." Bruce gestured broadly to the cosmic landscape.

"Interesting," the bird that wasn't a bird murmured. "It seems you two have staked out your claim here. I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Maybe we could go wait on the shore? I can't go further than the Gate, but you should have access to everywhere from there."

"I'm not so sure it's a good idea to move. If Adam sent me here, this is probably where he'll look for me," Bruce asserted.

The creature looked around nervously. "All the same, this isn't a good spot to wait." Did death wishes seemed to run in this family?

"Why is that? I'd really like to know."

The bird cackled dryly, "Be careful. You're tapping on a box lid you really don't want to open, Doctor Pandora." It turned its back and began to preen its feathers and pretend to ignore Bruce.

"Now, you've really made me curious. I'm pretty certain we're outside my consciousness," Bruce prodded. Raven stopped its grooming and cocked its head. "We're in some kind of limbo. Adam called it the Void, but it's also a pathway. I'm guessing it's a way to get between . . ."

"Careful, Dr. Banner, as you've probably surmised already, I answer to superiors. Sometimes it's better if I don't have information to pass along."

"Ah, mia culpability." The physicist wasn't about to be put off so easily. He kept staring steadily at the emissary, hoping that might rattle it.

Raven knew diplomacy was a given when dealing with Bruce because he couldn't afford to be on his bad side. "I know you don't have any reason to trust me, Doctor, but I mean no harm to you or your brother. Neither do my superiors as far as I know."

Bruce narrowed his eyes, "Tell me whom you answer to then."

"In case it's _not_ obvious, I'm _not_ at liberty to discuss it." Raven coughed. After his visit home, he wasn't 100% sure exactly whom he did serve himself. Things were getting odder by the day. "If it will make you feel better, I report to my order, not directly to my boss. Like any good bureaucracy, information takes a while to get anywhere."

Bruce gave the emissary a narrow look, "Is your order a conspiracy or an unkindness?"

"It's a _Constable_ if you must know. We watch, bear witness, and protect. We're not thieves or scavengers," Raven huffed. "Of course, you'd know more about spies firsthand than I do."

"Touché." Bruce was a little surprised that he'd struck a nerve. "Why are you so interested in Adam? He's shared my head all our lives, so why are you getting so invested now. I can't believe it's purely altruistic on your part or your boss's part either."

If Raven could sigh with exasperation, he would have. _Why was it never easy with these two?_ "It's not without charity, but you're the genius. Figure it out."

Bruce was trying to stay calm and not raise his voice. "He isn't a threat to you. I have him here where he's safe. There's no real reason to be keeping an eye on him."

"You're right. He's not really a threat, not at the moment anyhow, but I'm here to make sure he stays that way or we all have ample warning."

"He's . . . we're already the Hulk, but neither of us have any sort of ambitions or desires for power. We'd just like to be left in peace," Bruce tried to assure the bird without implying any threats, but his patience had its limits.

The daemon hopped closer, almost within arm's reach of Bruce. Raven knew he should be more conciliatory, but he needed this Banner to understand the complexity of their situation. "You say that now because neither of you are self-aware enough to know better. Circumstances won't always be this simple. Eventually, you're going to be pushed, and then you'll have no choice but to rise to the occasion. When that happens, all bets are off because too much will be at stake. The limits you've both put on yourselves are going to be meaningless once things hit the fan, Doctor."

Bruce was getting tired of the cryptic warnings about dire consequences. "Whoa. You're saying a good bit, but it's not making very much sense. What kind of potential danger do you see? Why do either of us warrant your attention now?"

"Doc, I don't know how to break this to you. Even if neither of you are the biggest or baddest thing around at the moment, that's highly likely to change. If you want to know why or how, just look around you. Even between you and me, we can't keep a lid on him forever." Raven looked over the expanse and down to the rock they were sitting on. "I've said enough."

"You've told me next to nothing. You want me to trust you, but I'm not hearing anything to persuade me."

"Then try to understand that some of us have constraints on what we say outright, no matter what we want to share."

"Even if I'll forget it when I leave here?" Bruce was trying not to plead, but he was down to that or outright begging.

The bird shook its head. "Having a memory as unreliable as yours isn't exactly a selling point either, Doc." The emissary honestly felt for the man, but his sense of self-preservation was way too strong to go further.

Bruce was tired of getting nowhere. He rubbed his brow with both hands, trying to think of some way to reassure himself about this creature Adam had taken up with and regarded as a friend. "Tell me this, does Strange know about you?"

"Yes, he's aware," the bird said carefully.

Finally, a straight answer. "Do you know him?"

"Not personally, but he knows one of us was sent."

"Does that make you . . . ?" Bruce started to ask something more, but much to Raven's relief, the physicist was being pulled elsewhere. Raven watched him rapidly fade and disappear from the rock. That meant the reckoning with Wanda Maximoff was likely over, praise the All-Father! Now, the bird wished he had a tankard of ale in which to drown himself. He'd known from the outset this post assignment wasn't going to be easy, but he'd had no idea how frustrated he'd be with the directives and constraints that came with it.

He took to the wing and flew back along the pillars and onto the edge of Adam's realm. Raven seldom second guessed himself, but maybe it was a mistake to approach the doctor. The circumstances made him a real wild card. Norns, what was done was done whether the man remembered it or not. Raven thought he was definitely going soft in his old age. If he had any common sense, he'd have turned in his chit and insisted on being replaced; yet, he didn't want a cocky rookie flying in and messing up the relationship he'd been cultivating. Oh, who was he kidding? He wanted to see this through, and the kid, well both of the brothers, were a hard luck case. The bird could relate to that. Neither of the Banners really trusted him, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He couldn't be the only party taking an interest now. There had to be others. Still, Raven had not lied, even if he'd not been forthcoming. He was walking a knife's edge performing his duties while trying to be . . . what? An advisor? An ally? That was something he was going to have to figure out.

* * *

" . . . you Huginn or Muninn?" Bruce rocked back on his heels. He'd been sitting, but now he was standing in what looked like his living room. Adam grabbed his brother's elbow to steady him.

"You must have really wanted to see that cosmic light show again because that's the only reason I can come up with for you landing there," Adam said as he shook his head with relief.

Bruce sat down in a chair and put his head between his knees. He told himself he wasn't really physically here and he wasn't really feeling like hurling on his bare feet and all over the rug he and Nat had picked out online. "What are we both doing here? Shouldn't you be behind the wheel."

"I haven't physically moved off the blanket. I'm meditating. I wanted to make sure you were okay before I went back."

"Thank you." Bruce sat up slowly as he regained his equilibrium. "Your fowl friend has returned, but I couldn't get much out of him."

"That's good, that he's back—I think—and he's never forthcoming, so that's expected. I'm surprised he's returned so soon."

"He's on edge about something, and he was definitely not happy about my location." Bruce puffed out his lips as he exhaled. "I don't get what you see in that creature as a friend. He's not cooperative at all. The only thing I could get confirmed is that Strange should know someone from his 'order' is here keeping tabs on you. Aside from that, it was mostly just dire warnings."

Adam patted Bruce's shoulder. "Frustrating, isn't it?" He tried not to act too smug about it.

If he noticed an attitude, Bruce ignored it. "Maddening. You have a lot more patience than I do."

"Comes with the territory." Adam stepped back, "Are you going to be okay if I leave you here?"

"I'll be fine. How did your tête-à-tête with Wanda go?"

"Good, surprisingly good, but I had to let her into my head." Adam didn't want to say more until he'd processed everything. "Guardian turned out well. I think Nat wants to adopt it."

"Wanda asked me if there was something you'd like. I hope you don't mind I shared that with her. You're not exactly easy to bake brownies or knit a sweater for."

"It's okay. I did tell her a little about it. I'll explain more to you later, okay?"

"Stop. Come here, Adam." Bruce stood up with his arms wide, and his brother quickly embraced him around the waist. Adam pressed his cheek into Bruce's abdomen as they hugged each other fiercely. "I am so proud of you. You've come so far." Bruce would have held him longer, but he could wait till tonight for the details. "Okay, go enjoy your time outside."

"You know I will." Adam paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Why don't you practice some left-handed exercises while you wait?" he said with a grin and was quickly gone as he strode through the wall.

"Wait . . ." Bruce shook his head. He hadn't gotten a chance to ask if Wanda had said anything about Reconciliation, but there would be time for that later or he could always follow up himself. The intermediate lesson book was still out on the piano where they'd left it. With nothing better to do, Bruce sat down on the bench and started in on the same lines they'd practiced earlier. He wasn't that surprised when it felt better this time, so he was soon onto the next page.

* * *

Wanda's eyes flew open as her consciousness entered back into her body. She was still seated in front of Hulk who seemed to be focused inside since he hadn't moved and his eyes were still closed. She wanted to reach out and touch his arm to either find him or bring him back. There didn't seem to be any evidence of distress, so she thought it was better not to intrude. She owed him his privacy.

"Is all well?" Vis asked as he stepped nearer and laid a hand on her shoulder. "You were only gone for twelve and half minutes."

Wanda rubbed her hands down her face and noticed her cheeks were still damp with tears. "Yes, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but I'm certain we have an understanding. We will be able to work together." She had a very clear image of a child with those green eyes that seemed to see right through her as they talked on a stony beach. Wanda looked at Natasha who was standing close by on her other side. "Should we just wait for him to come back out?"

"He's not in any distress, so it's better to wait and see if Bruce or Hulk will be back. They might be negotiating that, but the plan was to give Hulk some free time." Natasha circled the edge of the blankets, so she was closer to Wanda and facing Hulk. "If you want to head back or continue your walk, we'll be okay here."

The young woman looked at the android. "I think I'd like to finish the walk. We've been in planes and cars a lot today," Wanda noted.

"Only if you're certain you don't require our presence, Natasha," Vision added.

"Don't worry. Either way, I'm sure Bruce will be back in time to finish cooking dinner," Natasha assured them.

"Alright," Wanda said and she stood up and stretched before taking Vis's hand, and they walked away down the trail.

Natasha waited until the couple was far enough along the path not to overhear her before she moved to about two feet in front to the meditative giant. "They're gone, you big faker." She stepped to his left and gave Hulk a hard shove in shoulder. He sprawled over dramatically on his side, trying to hold back a rumbling chuckle.

"Wha-what gave . . . ?" Adam asked. His tongue and mouth still weren't cooperating very well, but there was improvement.

Natasha purposely stepped on his legs as she took the short route over his body to face him. "Your breathing. You did a little extra inhale then switched over to just nose breathing. Pretty obvious."

Okay, at least he hadn't drooled this time! Careful to avoid crushing her, Adam flopped over on his back and lay there on the blankets with his arms spread-eagled, simply looking up at the early evening sky. He'd been tense for so long today that all he wanted to do was be still and do nothing for a bit. The moving air and late day sun were pleasant on his skin, and he breathed in smell of trampled grass and earth. All of it felt comforting and real. Adam realized he'd missed it more than he'd thought. He could hit the lake tomorrow.

Natasha wanted to give him a knuckle rub on the head, but she settled for roughly scrubbing her hands through his curls on top as she circled around him then sat down on his right shoulder and scooted herself up to settle on his chest. Now, they could see eye to eye. She was being a bit physical on purpose since part of working with Hulk was more akin to puppy training than anything else. This was one area where she pushed it further than the therapy team could. Not long after they'd met, Maggie had quietly slipped Nat a training manual with the chapters for socializing young animals clearly marked. The whole team was in uncharted territory working with the Big Guy, but Nat knew in her gut that Hulk really needed the physical contact if he was going to keep progressing out in the world.

"You big stinker! You think you're so sneaky." Adam folded his massive arms behind his head to see her better then smiled coyly and wagged his eyebrows, daring her a bit. Natasha seemed to be in a playful mood, so he might as well be, too.

She gave him an exasperated look. Nat had to admit that playing dead to avoid further stress was a useful tactic. It certainly wasn't enough of a reason to be mad at him, but it was a good excuse to give him a hard time. The spy patted Adam's dark chest hair, "Yes, you are the giant economy size of cute and ornery, but . . ." her tone became more serious, "I need to know if you are okay?"

Adam nodded. He knew she wasn't going to let him off without a debriefing. If he went slowly, he hoped the words would come. "Glad to be done." He wanted to tell her more, but he didn't want to get frustrated with himself, not right now. "Can m-move on." He knew he could sign parts of what he wanted to say, but it was never the way he wanted. He wasn't particularly vane, but Adam hated looking like a big green gorilla. The idea that he could have a conversation with Wanda, yet never really communicate that well with Natasha was also upsetting. His grin faded to more of a grimace. _Words! Words! Hulk hate words!_ Sometimes he really did feel that way.

"Hey, I see the wheels turning. Talk to me if you aren't going to go mope in the lake," she teased him a bit since he'd done that before.

"No mope." He nodded at her, "Your turn. Tasha talk. I can listen."

Well, that kind of surprised her. Usually, they didn't get this kind of down time together. "What do you want me to talk about?"

Truthfully, just the sound of her voice was what he wanted, but he latched onto an earlier thought. "What do you think about . . ." Adam looked toward the spot where Vision and Wanda had disappeared as they walked down the path and into the trees, "those two? You think they're happy?"

"Vis and Wanda? From what I've observed, they're getting along well. Their faces light up when they talk about each other. They hold hands and do a lot of casual touching." Natasha looked down and gave a sideways shake of her head as she considered the question before looking back up, "They're sharing a room, so I guess that's going alright. Why do you want to know?"

"Bruce said to look at Vis' design. See if that's something I might want."

"Really?" This was new territory.

"He thinks cradle could be used to make a clone."

"You mean a body?"

Adam nodded, "Plur . . . pluri . . ."

"They'd use your pluripotent cells?" He nodded. She had wondered how long it would be before Bruce seriously considered it. "Hmm, so you'd have a separate body? You wouldn't be inside Bruce?"

"Yes. Just theory." Adam shrugged a bit, trying to be casual since he didn't want to disturb her. "No way to get me in yet. Body first."

"Is that what you want?"

That caused him to pause and consider the idea. "If that's what Bruce wants, I won't fight him."

Natasha leaned forward and touched his jaw to get him to look at her. "No, answer the question. Do you want a body?"

He looked her in the eyes for a moment before he dropped his gaze to the side uncomfortably. "Don't know. Don't want my hopes up. Hurts. Want Bruce to have what he wants," Adam said quietly.

"Stop. Don't put Bruce first for once." She didn't want to encourage discord, but he needed to stand up for himself and not just go along with his brother's wishes or enthusiasms.

He looked back at her pleadingly. "We need to get along. Don't ask me not to choose what Bruce needs me to do. The doll was named Guardian. That was me. It's what I do."

She was flabbergasted. "But you're not his servant. You're his brother, and you deserve to make your own choices that are best for you when you can." She didn't often get in his face, but dammit, this was important. "You are not the Giving Tree! You have some autonomy here."

Adam laughed at that. Trying not to shake Nat from her perch on his pecs, he stretched his arms out again and lay his head back on the blanket to think. He'd wanted to ask if people would be less afraid of him if he was like Vision, but the conversation wasn't heading that way. He knew she wanted to help, but how could he explain his delicate position to her? "You don't know what you're asking, Tasha. Bruce being happy makes me happy. He's not trying to hurt me. Leave it there."

Natasha did not want to let the subject rest, but before she could object further, he'd closed his eyes and begun to transition back to Bruce. "You big chicken!" She slid forward and to the side of his neck, so she could get off his torso and avoid sitting on Bruce.

In a few moments, the bewildered physicist was looking up at her, blinking his dark brown eyes, and looking dazed. "I guess Hulk didn't want to go swimming?" Bruce asked as he sat up. He could see Nat was pretty agitated though he wasn't sure why yet.

Natasha sat down beside him on the blanket. "No, he just wanted to talk. You've brought up cloning a body for him."

Had he? "Uh, I've been thinking about how to upgrade Helen's cradle, but that's just something I've been kicking around. I've not mentioned it to anyone yet. We're going to have to wait till after the Agreements are done to even discuss it because her lab isn't secure."

"Well, you've been discussing it with someone in your head then."

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry to triangulate you. What did he say?"

Natasha leaned against him and rested her head on Bruce's shoulder. "You have a very loyal brother."

"I know. He's very patient for a large green rage monster, too." Geeze, what had they said?

She raised her head so she could look at Bruce. "I feel bad for him. He doesn't seem to have hopes or ambitions beyond, well, us being happy. It's all so vicarious and limited with him."

"Would you rather he did have more of an agenda? Short of us flipping places and him taking over, we're working things out as equitably as we can. I'm certain he understands that. I, I do feel bad, but I promise I will do everything I can."

"It's okay. I get that. It just seems like . . . I don't know?! I tried to get him to talk, and I just stepped all over what little time he's had out. Shit!" What had she been thinking? He had to have been looking forward to this opportunity, and she'd pretty much forced him to leave. _Way to go, Natalia_.

"Wait. I did not get the feeling he was upset when we transitioned, Nat. He took most of the pain and was under control. If he was pissed, he'd have jumped in the lake and not come up for an hour." Natasha looked at Bruce skeptically though she knew he was trying to get her to feel better. "There will be more time for him out here tomorrow. Don't feel sorry for him. Come on, we're both tired and now I'm getting freakishly _hungry_." Bruce reached over with his right hand and took her left, gently lifting it so his lips brushed across her fingers before he planted a kiss on the back. "Let's get back and finish making dinner before Wanda beats me to it."

Natasha knew he was right. She leaned in closer and then registered the warmth and the pleasant aroma coming off Bruce. "That stinker," she murmured as something dawned on her. Bruce raised a questioning eyebrow. "Nothing, I just know he's not above leaving a complimentary libido dump on you."

Bruce had already planted a quick kiss on her neck. "Hmm? What do you mean?"

Natasha chuckled as she dodged his second pass and rolled forward and onto her feet. "Oh, come on. I'll explain it to you later. If I can't work on his socialization skills, I guess we're going to work on yours." Bruce frowned up at her, and she gave him a hand up to his feet. He didn't seem all that discouraged and tried to wrap an arm around her, but she maneuvered out of the embrace and tossed him his clothing instead.

"Uh, that's good, I guess?" Bruce put his shirt and shoes back on, and they picked up the blankets and folded them together. She let him get in a quick peck on her cheek. Once they were all packed up, they headed back toward the lodge, fingers hooking and hands playfully touching. She kept him moving up the trail, but when they arrived back on the grounds Bruce abruptly stopped and turned to her. "Nooo, you mean. Noooo! He wouldn't do that on purpose, would he? That's just . . . just . . ."

Natasha burst out laughing. "I love you, Bruce. This isn't the first time he's played this card. Let's just get through dinner! It'll be okay!"

Bruce seemed to be totally taken aback by his sibling's tactics. "That little shit . . . I mean, that _big_ shit! I'm . . . wait, I'll be fine. Dinner is good." He wrung his hands, looking a little panicked. "Cooking will keep me occupied. Just kick me if I start staring at your ass . . . or grabbing it because I really want to do just that."

As they scanned themselves in at the back entrance, she took the baggage from him. "Go, brown your chicken and cook paprikash. I promise I will make it worth your while later." She kissed him briefly on the lips, and he surprised her by pulling her into a deeper, hungrier one. He smelled like desire and promises and something irresistibly sweet. "Later," she whispered once he broke it off and stepped back.

"Yes, later!" He nodded and turned away quickly, heading for the kitchen and its welcome distractions.

 **End Note:** Infinity War is next week, so I'm looking forward to it with hopes and fears for all, especially our One True Pair. Fingers crossed!

I'm pretty sure the next chapter here will involve paprikash over noodles and the code to the lodge's wine cellar. Please let me know what you think! It really does keep me going when things get difficult. Who do you think should show up at the lake for the holiday?


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